Magnetic field structure around cores with VeLLOs

This study was conducted mainly to understand the role played by the magnetic field in the formation of very low and substellar mass range objects. Light from the stars, while passing through the dust grains that are aligned with their short axis parallel to an external magnetic field, becomes linearly polarised.

The polarisation position angles measured for the stars can provide the plane-of-the sky magnetic field orientation. Because the light in the optical wavelength range is most efficiently polarised by the dust grains typically found at the outer layers of the molecular clouds, optical polarimetry mostly traces the magnetic field orientation of the core envelope.