Interstellar magnetic fields: An observational perspective

The plausibility of magnetic molecular clouds is established. It is shown that the empirically known relations between spectral line width, density, and cloud size can be derived from a virial equilibrium model where gravity is balanced by the sum of magnetic and pressure support. It is shown that substitution of measured density, cloud size, and line width measurements into the model can predict observed field strength to within a factor of two. The Zeeman effect is discussed and new measurements are presented for magnetic field strength based on OH and HI Zeeman observations at the Arecibo and Green Bank telescopes. The Barnard 1 (B1) region, in the Perseus Molecular Cloud Complex, is discussed in detail. OH spectral line intensity maps are presented for the regions where the OH Zeeman effect was observed, which allow, for the first time, comparison of observed field strength values with predicted field strength values, using emission from a single molecular species. Spatial structure of magnetic fields in molecular clouds are investigated. New optical polarization maps are presented for the dark clouds in Perseus, Taurus, and Ophiuchus. The polarization observed is attributed to preferential extinction of background starlight by magnetically aligned dust grains in the clouds, and we analyze the polarization maps as maps of the projection of the magnetic field onto the plane of the sky