Towards realistic predictions of mm/sub-mm polarized dust emission

Though polarized dust emission provides valuable information on the morphology of the magnetic fields, it relies on the ability of dust grains to align with it. The actual mechanism and local efficiencies are still not well known. Since the observed mm and sub-mm polarization results from a combination of different local magnetic field, density and temperature conditions along the line-of-sight and it is subject to dust optical depth effects, it is necessary to use 3D models to constrain the robustness of dust polarized emission as a tracer, especially in highly inhomogeneous environments. Using cutting-edge numerical simulations (generated with the RAMSES code) of a magnetized collapse including the effects of the ambipolar diffusion we use the POLARIS code to produce maps of the Stokes parameters using different assumptions for the dust alignment mechanisms. We compare these results with direct integrations at different depths to obtain the mean magnetic field direction and strength. Finally, we present synthetic observations including instrumental effects which are directly comparable to available interferometric observations.