We have conducted ALMA CO isotopes and 1.3 mm continuum observations toward filamentary molecular clouds of the N159W-South region in the Large Magellanic Cloud with an angular resolution of ∼0 25 ...(∼0.07 pc). Although the previous lower-resolution (∼1″) ALMA observations revealed that there is a high-mass protostellar object at an intersection of two line-shaped filaments in 13CO with the length scale of ∼10 pc, the spatially resolved observations, in particular, toward the highest column density part traced by the 1.3 mm continuum emission, the N159W-South clump, show complicated hub-filamentary structures. We also discovered that there are multiple protostellar sources with bipolar outflows along the massive filament. The redshifted/blueshifted components of the 13CO emission around the massive filaments/protostars have complementary distributions, which is considered to be possible evidence for a cloud-cloud collision. We propose a new scenario in which the supersonically colliding gas flow triggers the formation of both the massive filament and protostars. This is a modification of the earlier scenario of cloud-cloud collision, by Fukui et al., that postulated the two filamentary clouds occur prior to the high-mass star formation. A recent theoretical study of the shock compression in colliding molecular flows by Inoue et al. demonstrates that the formation of filaments with hub structure is a usual outcome of the collision, lending support for the present scenario. The theory argues that the filaments are formed as dense parts in a shock compressed sheet-like layer, which resembles "an umbrella with pokes."
We have performed survey-type observations in 1 mm continuum and molecular lines toward dense cores (32 prestellar + 7 protostellar) with an average density of 105 cm−3 in the Taurus molecular clouds ...using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array-Atacama Compact Array (ALMA-ACA) stand-alone mode with an angular resolution of 6 5 (∼900 au). The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the innermost part of dense cores with view to understanding the initial condition of star formation. In the protostellar cores, contributions from protostellar disks dominate the observed continuum flux with a range of 35%-90%, except for the very low-luminosity object. For the prestellar cores, we have successfully confirmed continuum emission from dense gas with a density of 3 × 105 cm−3 toward approximately one-third of the targets. Thanks to the lower spatial frequency coverage with the ACA 7 m array, the detection rate is significantly higher than that of the previous surveys, which have zero or one continuum-detected sources among a large number of starless samples using the ALMA Main Array. The statistical counting method tells us that the lifetime of prestellar cores until protostar formation therein approaches the freefall time as the density increases. Among the prestellar cores, at least two targets have possible internal substructures, which are detected in continuum emission with the size scale of ∼1000 au if we consider the molecular line (C18O and N2D+) distributions. These results suggest that small-scale fragmentation/coalescence processes occur in a region smaller than 0.1 pc, which may determine the final core mass associated with individual protostar formation before starting the dynamical collapse of the core with a central density of ∼(0.3-1) × 106 cm−3.
We present ALMA observations of CO isotopes and 1.3 mm continuum emission toward the N159E-Papillon Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The spatial resolution is 0 25-0 28 (0.06-0.07 pc), ...which is a factor of 3 higher than previous ALMA observations in this region. The high resolution allowed us to resolve highly filamentary CO distributions with typical widths of ∼0.1 pc (full width half maximum) and line masses of a few 100 M pc−1. The filaments (more than ten in number) show an outstanding hub-filament structure emanating from the nebular center toward the north. We identified for the first time two massive protostellar outflows of ∼104 yr dynamical age along one of the most massive filaments. The observations also revealed several pillar-like CO features around the Nebula. The H ii region and the pillars have a complementary spatial distribution and the column density of the pillars is an order of magnitude higher than that of the pillars in the Eagle nebula (M16) in the Galaxy, suggesting an early stage of pillar formation with an age younger than ∼105 yr. We suggest that a cloud-cloud collision triggered the formation of the filaments and protostar within the last ∼2 Myr. It is possible that the collision is more recent, as part of the kpc-scale H i flows come from the tidal interaction resulting from the close encounter between the LMC and SMC ∼200 Myr ago as suggested for R136 by Fukui et al.
SPECTRAL LINE SURVEY TOWARD A MOLECULAR CLOUD IN IC10 Nishimura, Yuri; Shimonishi, Takashi; Watanabe, Yoshimasa ...
Astrophysical journal/The Astrophysical journal,
10/2016, Letnik:
829, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
ABSTRACT We have conducted a spectral line survey observation in the 3 mm band toward the low-metallicity dwarf galaxy IC10 with the 45 m radio telescope of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory to explore ...its chemical composition at a molecular-cloud scale (∼80 pc). The CS, SO, CCH, HCN, HCO+, and HNC lines are detected for the first time in this galaxy in addition to the CO and 13CO lines, while the c-C3H2, CH3OH, CN, C18O, and N2H+ lines are not detected. The spectral intensity pattern is found to be similar to those observed toward molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), whose metallicity is as low as IC10. Nitrogen-bearing species are deficient in comparison with the Galactic molecular clouds due to a lower elemental abundance of nitrogen. CCH is abundant in comparison with Galactic translucent clouds, whereas CH3OH may be deficient. These characteristic trends for CCH and CH3OH are also seen in the LMC, and seem to originate from photodissociation regions more extended in the peripheries of molecular clouds due to the lower metallicity condition.
ABSTRACT Spectral line survey observations of seven molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) have been conducted in the 3 mm band with the Mopra 22 m telescope to reveal chemical ...compositions in low metallicity conditions. Spectral lines of fundamental species such as CS, SO, CCH, HCN, HCO+, and HNC are detected in addition to those of CO and 13CO, while CH3OH is not detected in any source and N2H+ is marginally detected in two sources. The molecular-cloud scale (10 pc scale) chemical composition is found to be similar among the seven sources regardless of different star formation activities, and hence, it represents the chemical composition characteristic of the LMC without influences by star formation activities. In comparison with chemical compositions of Galactic sources, the characteristic features are (1) deficient N-bearing molecules, (2) abundant CCH, and (3) deficient CH3OH. Feature (1) is due to a lower elemental abundance of nitrogen in the LMC, whereas features (2) and (3) seem to originate from extended photodissociation regions and warmer temperature in cloud peripheries due to a lower abundance of dust grains in the low metallicity condition. In spite of general resemblance of chemical abundances among the seven sources, the CS/HCO+ and SO/HCO+ ratios are found to be slightly higher in a quiescent molecular cloud. An origin of this trend is discussed in relation to possible depletion of sulfur along the molecular cloud formation.
To study a molecular-cloud-scale chemical composition, we conducted a mapping spectral line survey toward the Galactic molecular cloud W3(OH), which is one of the most active star-forming regions in ...the Perseus arm. We conducted our survey through the use of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory 45 m telescope, and observed the area of 16′ × 16′, which corresponds to 9.0 pc × 9.0 pc. The observed frequency ranges are 87-91, 96-103, and 108-112 GHz. We prepared the spectrum averaged over the observed area, in which eight molecular species (CCH, HCN, HCO+, HNC, CS, SO, C18O, and 13CO) are identified. On the other hand, the spectrum of the W3(OH) hot core observed at a 0.17 pc resolution shows the lines of various molecules such as OCS, H2CS CH3CCH, and CH3CN in addition to the above species. In the spatially averaged spectrum, emission of the species concentrated just around the star-forming core, such as CH3OH and HC3N, is fainter than in the hot core spectrum, whereas emission of the species widely extended over the cloud such as CCH is relatively brighter. We classified the observed area into five subregions according to the integrated intensity of 13CO, and evaluated the contribution to the averaged spectrum from each subregion. The CCH, HCN, HCO+, and CS lines can be seen even in the spectrum of the subregion with the lowest 13CO integrated intensity range (<10 K km s−1). Thus, the contributions of the spatially extended emission is confirmed to be dominant in the spatially averaged spectrum.
We studied star formation activities in the molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We have utilized the second catalog of 272 molecular clouds obtained by NANTEN to compare the cloud ...distribution with signatures of massive star formation including stellar clusters, and optical and radio H II regions. We find that the molecular clouds are classified into three types according to the activities of massive star formation: Type I shows no signature of massive star formation; Type II is associated with relatively small H II region(s); and Type III with both H II region(s) and young stellar cluster(s). The radio continuum sources were used to confirm that Type I giant molecular clouds (GMCs) do not host optically hidden H II regions. These signatures of massive star formation show a good spatial correlation with the molecular clouds in the sense that they are located within ~100 pc of the molecular clouds. Among possible ideas to explain the GMC types, we favor that the types indicate an evolutionary sequence; i.e., the youngest phase is Type I, followed by Type II, and the last phase is Type III, where the most active star formation takes place leading to cloud dispersal. The number of the three types of GMCs should be proportional to the timescale of each evolutionary stage if a steady state of massive star and cluster formation is a good approximation. By adopting the timescale of the youngest stellar clusters, 10 Myr, we roughly estimate the timescales of Types I, II, and III to be 6 Myr, 13 Myr, and 7 Myr, respectively, corresponding to a lifetime of 20-30 Myr for the GMCs with a mass above the completeness limit, 5 X 104 M.
We report molecular line and continuum observations toward one of the most massive giant molecular clouds (GMCs), GMC-16, in M33 using ALMA with an angular resolution of 0 44 × 0 27 (∼2 pc × 1 pc). ...We have found that the GMC is composed of several filamentary structures in 12CO and 13CO(J = 2-1). The typical length, width, and total mass are ∼50-70 pc, ∼5-6 pc, and ∼105 M , respectively, which are consistent with those of giant molecular filaments (GMFs) as seen in the Galactic GMCs. The elongations of the GMFs are roughly perpendicular to the direction of the galaxy's rotation, and several H ii regions are located at the downstream side relative to the filaments with an offset of ∼10-20 pc. These observational results indicate that the GMFs are considered to be produced by a galactic spiral shock. The 1.3 mm continuum and C18O(J = 2-1) observations detected a dense clump with the size of ∼2 pc at the intersection of several filamentary clouds, which is referred to as the "hub filament," possibly formed by a cloud-cloud collision. A strong candidate for protostellar outflow in M33 has also been identified at the center of the clump. We have successfully resolved the parsec-scale local star formation activity in which the galactic scale kinematics may induce the formation of the parental filamentary clouds.
We report ALMA Cycle 3 observations in CO isotopes toward a dense core, MC27/L1521F in Taurus, which is considered to be at an early stage of multiple star formation in a turbulent environment. ...Although most of the high-density parts of this core are considered to be as cold as ∼10 K, high-angular resolution (∼20 au) observations in 12CO (J = 3-2) revealed complex warm (>15-60 K) filamentary/clumpy structures with the sizes from a few tens of astronomical units to ∼1000 au. The interferometric observations of 13CO and C18O show that the densest part with arc-like morphologies associated with the previously identified protostar and condensations are slightly redshifted from the systemic velocity of the core. We suggest that the warm CO clouds may be consequences of shock heating induced by interactions among the different density/velocity components that originated from the turbulent motions in the core. However, such a small-scale and fast turbulent motion does not correspond to a simple extension of the line-width-size relation (i.e., Larson's law), and thus the actual origin remains to be studied. The high-angular resolution CO observations are expected to be essential in detecting small-scale turbulent motions in dense cores and to investigate protostar formation therein.
ABSTRACT
We investigate the H i envelope of the young, massive GMCs in the star-forming regions N48 and N49, which are located within the high column density H i ridge between two kpc-scale ...supergiant shells, LMC 4 and LMC 5. New long-baseline H i 21 cm line observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) were combined with archival shorter baseline data and single dish data from the Parkes telescope, for a final synthesized beam size of 24.75 arcsec by 20.48 arcsec, which corresponds to a spatial resolution of ∼6 pc in the LMC. It is newly revealed that the H i gas is highly filamentary and that the molecular clumps are distributed along filamentary H i features. In total 39 filamentary features are identified and their typical width is ∼21 (8–49) pc. We propose a scenario in which the GMCs were formed via gravitational instabilities in atomic gas which was initially accumulated by the two shells and then further compressed by their collision. This suggests that GMC formation involves the filamentary nature of the atomic medium.
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