The Magnetic Critical Mass-to-Flux Ratio in Observed Cores: How Many Cores Are Magnetically Supercritical?

This paper addresses a single question: Given the field strengths inferred from Zeeman and polarisation measurements, how large a mass can magnetic flux alone support in a core, and by what factor do observed core masses exceed that support? Using published molecular-cloud and young-stellar-object measurements as inputs, and carrying the spin-torsion density bound of 9.72 x 10^57 kilograms per cubic metre and its critical shear of 8.56 x 10^32 per second as fixed comparison scales, the calculation finds that for representative field strengths of 10 to 100 microgauss the magnetic critical mass ranges from a few solar masses in a small core to several hundred in a cloud envelope, and the representative cores considered here are supercritical by factors of about one and a half to two, so magnetic support delays collapse but does not prevent it in these cases; no quantity supplied by the density or shear bound enters this comparison, which is stated as a negative result for the frame in this channel. The headline values are: n supercritical = 4; lambda range = 1.47 to 2.20; Mcrit quiescent Msun = 2.3. All values are computed from the stated formulae and inputs; this is a simulated and computed study, not a measurement. Where the comparison scales supplied by the torsion framework turn out to be too remote to influence the process, that outcome is reported as a negative result rather than passed over.