A key project for SHARP is to follow up on our 2009 study of NGC 1333 IRAS 4A (shown at top right and described below) by carrying out a survey of isolated cloud cores contaning single low-mass Class 0 protostars, for the purpose of testing theories of magnetically regulated core collapse.  The second paper from this ongoing survey was very recently submitted to the Astrophysical Journal by Nicholas Chapman and collaborators.  It analyzes magnetic field data for seven protostellar cores.  The first paper was published in 2011 (J. Davidson; lead author).  (To see a full list of Ap. J. papers published or submitted, click here.)

In our paper on NGC 1333 IRAS 4A (Attard et al. 2009) we showed how the combination of our SHARP data with earlier results obtained by SMA observers provides the first example of a complete magnetic hourglass observed in a low-mass star forming region.  The SMA results (interferometric polarimetry by Girart et al. 2006) revealed the innermost waist of the hourglass, while the SHARP data show the outermost, straighter portion of the hourglass field.  The figure at top right of this page (Figure 1 from Attard et al.) shows both data sets.  The magnetic hourglass structure is a key prediction of theories for magnetically regulated collapse of molecular cloud cores.