We have mapped the Auriga/California molecular cloud with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE cameras and the Bolocam 1.1 mm camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) with the eventual goal of quantifying the star formation and cloud structure in this Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) that is comparable in size and mass to the Orion GMC, but which appears to be forming far fewer stars. We have tabulated 60 compact 70/160um sources that are likely pre-main-sequence objects and correlated those with Spitzer and WISE mid-IR sources. At 1.1 mm we find 18 cold, compact sources and discuss their properties. The most important result from this part of our study is that we find a modest number of additional compact young objects beyond those identified at shorter wavelengths with Spitzer. We also describe the dust column density and temperature structure derived from our photometric maps. The column density peaks at a few x 10^22 cm^-2 (N_H2) and is distributed in a clear filamentary structure along which nearly all the pre-main-sequence objects are found. We compare the YSO surface density to the gas column density and find a strong non-linear correlation between them. The dust temperature in the densest parts of the filaments drops to ~10K from values ~ 14--15K in the low density parts of the cloud. We also derive the cumulative mass fraction and probability density function of material in the cloud which we compare with similar data on other star-forming clouds.
We report the complete photometric results from our Herschel study which is the first comprehensive program to search for far-infrared emission from cold dust around young brown dwarfs. We surveyed 50 fields containing 51 known or suspected brown dwarfs and very low mass stars that have evidence of circumstellar disks based on Spitzer photometry and/or spectroscopy. The objects with known spectral types range from M3 to M9.5. Four of the candidates were subsequently identified as extragalactic objects. Of the remaining 47 we have successfully detected 36 at 70micron and 14 at 160micron with S/N greater than 3, as well as several additional possible detections with low S/N. The objects exhibit a range of [24]--[70] micron colors suggesting a range in mass and/or structure of the outer disk. We present modeling of the spectral energy distributions of the sample and discuss trends visible in the data. Using two Monte Carlo radiative transfer codes we investigate disk masses and geometry. We find a very wide range in modeled total disk masses from less than 1e-6 solar masses up to 1e-3 solar masses with a median disk mass of order 3e-5 solar masses, suggesting that the median ratio of disk mass to central object mass may be lower than for T Tauri stars. The disk scale heights and flaring angles, however, cover a range consistent with those seen around T Tauri stars. The host clouds in which the young brown dwarfs and low-mass stars are located span a range in estimated age from ~1-3 Myr to ~10 Myr and represent a variety of star-forming environments. No obvious dependence on cloud location or age is seen in the disk properties, though the statistical significance of this conclusion is not strong.
We present 37micron imaging of the S140 complex of infrared sources centered on IRS1 made with the FORCAST camera on SOFIA. These observations are the longest wavelength imaging to resolve clearly the three main sources seen at shorter wavelengths, IRS 1, 2 and 3, and are nearly at the diffraction limit of the 2.5-m telescope. We also obtained a small number of images at 11 and 31micron that are useful for flux measurement. Our images cover the area of several strong sub-mm sources seen in the area -- SMM 1, 2, and 3 -- that are not coincident with any mid-infrared sources and are not visible in our longer wavelength imaging either. Our new observations confirm previous estimates of the relative dust optical depth and source luminosity for the components in this likely cluster of early B stars. We also investigate the use of super-resolution to go beyond the basic diffraction limit in imaging on SOFIA and find that the van Cittert algorithm, together with the multi-resolution technique, provides excellent results.
We report on initial results from a Spitzer program to search for very low-mass brown dwarfs in Ophiuchus. This program is an extension of an earlier study by Allers et al. which had resulted in an extraordinary success rate, 18 confirmed out of 19 candidates. Their program combined near-infrared and Spitzer photom- etry to identify objects with very cool photospheres together with circumstellar disk emission to indicate youth. Our new program has obtained deep IRAC pho- tometry of a 0.5 deg2 field that was part of the original Allers et al. study. We report 18 new candidates whose luminosities extend down to 10-4 Lcdot which sug- gests masses down to ~ 2 MJ if confirmed. We describe our selection techniques, likely contamination issues, and follow-on photometry and spectroscopy that are in progress.
We report on diffraction-limited observations in the far-infrared and sub- millimeter of the Cluster B region of Serpens (G3-G6 Cluster) and of the Herbig Be star to the south, VV Ser. The observations were made with the Spitzer MIPS instrument in fine-scale mode at 70um, in normal mapping mode at 160um (VV Ser only), and the CSO SHARC-II camera at 350um (Cluster B only). We use these data to define the spectral energy distributions of the tightly grouped members of Cluster B, many of whose SEDs peak in the far-infrared. We compare our results to those of the c2d survey of Serpens and to published models for the far-infrared emission from VV Ser. We find that values of Lbol and Tbol calculated with our new photometry show only modest changes from previous values, and that most source SED classifications remain unchanged.
We present observations and modeling of a lunar occultation of the dust-enshrouded carbon star AFGL 5440. The observations were made over a continuous range of wavelengths from 1 - 4um with a high-speed spectrophotometer designed expressly for this purpose. We find that the occultation fringes cannot be fit by any single-size model. We use the DUSTY radiative transfer code to model a circumstellar shell and fit both the observed occultation light curves and the spectral energy distribution described in the literature. We find a strong constraint on the inner radius of the dust shell, Tmax = 950 K +/- 50K, and optical depth at 5um of 0.5 +/- 0.1. The observations are best fit by models with a density gradient of r^-2 or the gradient derived by Ivezic & Elitzur for a radiatively driven hydrodynamic outflow. Our models cannot fit the observed IRAS 60um flux without assuming a substantial abundance of graphite or by assuming a substantially higher mass-loss rate in the past.
We present maps of 1.5 square degrees of the Serpens dark cloud at 24, 70, and 160micron observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope MIPS Camera. More than 2400 compact sources have been extracted at 24um, nearly 100 at 70um, and 4 at 160um. We estimate completeness limits for our 24um survey from Monte Carlo tests with artificial sources inserted into the Spitzer maps. We compare source counts, colors, and magnitudes in the Serpens cloud to two reference data sets, a 0.50 deg^2 set on a low-extinction region near the dark cloud, and a 5.3 deg^2 subset of the SWIRE ELAIS N1 data that was processed through our pipeline. These results show that there is an easily identifiable population of young stellar object candidates in the Serpens Cloud that is not present in either of the reference data sets. We also show a comparison of visual extinction and cool dust emission illustrating a close correlation between the two, and find that the most embedded YSO candidates are located in the areas of highest visual extinction.
We discuss the results from the combined IRAC and MIPS c2d Spitzer Legacy observations of the Serpens star-forming region. In particular we present a set of criteria for isolating bona fide young stellar objects, YSOs, from the extensive background c
ontamination by extra-galactic objects. We then discuss the properties of the resulting high confidence set of YSOs. We find 235 such objects in the 0.85 deg^2 field that was covered with both IRAC and MIPS. An additional set of 51 lower confidence YSOs outside this area is identified from the MIPS data combined with 2MASS photometry. We describe two sets of results, color-color diagrams to compare our observed source properties with those of theoretical models for star/disk/envelope systems and our own modeling of the subset of our objects that appear to be star+disks. These objects exhibit a very wide range of disk properties, from many that can be fit with actively accreting disks to some with both passive disks and even possibly debris disks. We find that the luminosity function of YSOs in Serpens extends down to at least a few x .001 Lsun or lower for an assumed distance of 260 pc. The lower limit may be set by our inability to distinguish YSOs from extra-galactic sources more than by the lack of YSOs at very low luminosities. A spatial clustering analysis shows that the nominally less-evolved YSOs are more highly clustered than the later stages and that the background extra-galactic population can be fit by the same two-point correlation function as seen in other extra-galactic studies. We also present a table of matches between several previous infrared and X-ray studies of the Serpens YSO population and our Spitzer data set.
