Modeling Dust Polarization Observations of Molecular Clouds through MHD
  Simulations
  The BLASTPol observations of Vela C have provided the most detailed
characterization of the polarization fraction $p$ and dispersion in
polarization angles $S$ for a molecular cloud. We compare the observed
distributions of $p$ and $S$ with those obtained in synthetic observations of
simulations of molecular clouds, assuming homogeneous grain alignment. We find
that the orientation of the mean magnetic field relative to the observer has a
significant effect on the $p$ and $S$ distributions. These distributions for
Vela C are most consistent with synthetic observations where the mean magnetic
field is close to the line-of-sight. Our results point to apparent magnetic
disorder in the Vela C molecular cloud, although it can be due to either an
inclination effect (i.e., observing close to the mean field direction) or
significant field tangling from strong turbulence/low magnetization. The joint
correlations of $p$ with column density and of $S$ with column density for the
synthetic observations generally agree poorly with the Vela C joint
correlations, suggesting that understanding these correlations require a more
sophisticated treatment of grain alignment physics.
