ALMA High Angular Resolution Polarization Study: An Extremely Young Class 0 Source, OMC-3/MMS 6

Using the ≈16 km long baseline data obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), we imaged the Stokes I emission and linearly polarized intensity (PI) in the 1.1 mm continuum band of a very young intermediate-mass protostellar source, MMS 6, in the Orion Molecular Cloud-3. The achieved angular resolution, 0.″02 × 0.″03 (≈10 au), shows for the first time a wealth of data on the dust emission polarization in the central 200 au of a protostar. The PI peak is offset to the southeast (SE) by ≈20 au with respect to the Stokes I peak. Its polarization degree is 11% with its E-vector orientation of the position angle ≈135°. A partial ringlike structure with a radius of ≈80 au is detected in PI but not in the Stokes I. Northwest (NW) and SE parts of the ring are bright, with a high polarization degree of 10%, and their E-vector orientations are roughly orthogonal to those observed near the center. We also detected an armlike polarized structure, extending to 1000 au scale to the north, with the E-vectors aligned along the minor axis of the structure. We explored possible origins of the polarized emission by comparing them with magnetohydrodynamical simulations of the toroidal wrapping of the magnetic field. The simulations are consistent with the PI emission in the ringlike and the extended armlike structures observed with ALMA. However, the current simulations do not completely reproduce observed polarization characteristics in the central 50 au. Although the self-scattering model can explain the polarization pattern and positional offset between the Stokes I and PI in the central 50 au, this model is not able to reproduce the observed high degree of polarization.