Polarimetric and Photometric Investigation of the Dark Globule LDN 1225: Distance, Extinction Law, and Magnetic Fields

We present results based on the optical R-band observations of the polarization of 280 stars distributed toward the dark globule LDN 1225. Parallaxes from Gaia data release 2 along with the polarization data of ∼200 stars have been used to (a) constrain the distance of LDN 1225 as 830 83 pc, (b) determine the contribution of interstellar polarization, and (c) characterize the dust properties and delineate the magnetic field (B-field) morphology of LDN 1225. We find that B-fields are more organized and exhibit a small dispersion of 12°. Using the 12CO molecular line data from the Purple Mountain Observatory, along with the column density and dispersion in B-fields, we estimate the B-field strength to be ∼56 10 G, the ratio of magnetic to turbulent pressure to be ∼3 2, and the ratio of mass to magnetic flux (in units of the critical value) to be