Description
Whilst the evolutionary pathways of low-mass star formation have been largely well-understood, their counterparts towards the high-mass end is not and remain open for investigations still. The magnetic fields (B-fields) around giant molecular clouds are one of many key factors affecting the processes of massive star formation. Their structures and properties can be probed through polarised dust emission, induced by dust grain alignments with the B-fields. In this poster, I present our unpublished results on the magnetic fields of the massive star-forming cloud W51, utilising SOFIA/HAWC+ polarimetry data taken at 53, 89 and 214 microns. We have obtained the B-fields orientation maps of W51 for morphological studies. We also calculated the B-fields strength distribution using a combination of various approaches, though all are based on the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi (DCF) framework. Using this, we can work out the relative importance of the B-fields to the gravity and turbulence throughout this system, as it is crucial to determine whether the B-fields of W51 are super/sub-critical (strong enough to suppress gravitational collapse or not) and super/sub-Alfvenic (dominant over turbulence or not).
