SOFIA/HAWC+ Far-Infrared Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration SurveyV. The Magnetic Field and Morphology in the Sagittarius C Complex

We present an analysis of the magnetic field strength and morphology in the Sagittarius C complex (Sgr C; G359.43-0.09) in the Milky Way’s Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), using the 214 μm polarimetry data acquired with the High-resolution Airborne Wide-band Camera instrument on board the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. We conduct a modified Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi analysis of individual clouds and find that the sky-plane magnetic field strength varies from highly turbulent regions having inferred strengths of ∼30 μG to regions of relatively uniform field orientation having strengths of ∼400 μG. Several hundred magnetic field pseudovectors in the Sgr C region were measured to trace the projected magnetic field orientation within cold molecular clouds, and as is the trend throughout the CMZ, they show a higher polarization fraction toward the periphery of the clouds. The magnetic field orientations suggest that outflows from active star-forming regions, such as the G359.43-0.10 extended green object and the protostellar source FIR-4 (G359.43+0.02), cause high turbulence in their vicinity. The magnetic field direction is found to be tangential to the surface of the Sgr C H II region, which displays spatial correspondence with two [C II] emission cavities reported in the H II region, signifying a compression front between the H II region and the surrounding dense clouds. Several other features in the vicinity of Sgr C, especially numerous nonthermal radio filaments and a diffuse source of X-ray emission to the immediate southwest of the H II region, are discussed with regard to the magnetic field measurements.