No Arabic abstract
We investigate the relationship between turbulence and feedback in the Orion A molecular cloud using maps of $^{12}$CO(1-0), $^{13}$CO(1-0) and C$^{18}$O(1-0) from the CARMA-NRO Orion survey. We compare gas statistics with the impact of feedback in different parts of the cloud to test whether feedback changes the structure and kinematics of molecular gas. We use principal component analysis, the spectral correlation function, and the spatial power spectrum to characterize the cloud. We quantify the impact of feedback with momentum injection rates of protostellar outflows and wind-blown shells as well as the surface density of young stars. We find no correlation between shells or outflows and any of the gas statistics. However, we find a significant anti-correlation between young star surface density and the slope of the $^{12}$CO spectral correlation function, suggesting that feedback may influence this statistic. While calculating the principal components, we find peaks in the covariance matrix of our molecular line maps offset by 1-3 km s$^{-1}$ toward several regions of the cloud which may be produced by feedback. We compare these results to predictions from molecular cloud simulations.
We present the first results from a new, high resolution, $^{12}$CO(1-0), $^{13}$CO(1-0), and C$^{18}$O(1-0) molecular line survey of the Orion A cloud, hereafter referred to as the CARMA-NRO Orion Survey. CARMA observations have been combined with single-dish data from the Nobeyama 45m telescope to provide extended images at about 0.01 pc resolution, with a dynamic range of approximately 1200 in spatial scale. Here we describe the practical details of the data combination in uv space, including flux scale matching, the conversion of single dish data to visibilities, and joint deconvolution of single dish and interferometric data. A $Delta$-variance analysis indicates that no artifacts are caused by combining data from the two instruments. Initial analysis of the data cubes, including moment maps, average spectra, channel maps, position-velocity diagrams, excitation temperature, column density, and line ratio maps provides evidence of complex and interesting structures such as filaments, bipolar outflows, shells, bubbles, and photo-eroded pillars. The implications for star formation processes are profound and follow-up scientific studies by the CARMA-NRO Orion team are now underway. We plan to make all the data products described here generally accessible; some are already available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/CARMA-NRO-Orion
We have investigated the formation and kinematics of sub-mm continuum cores in the Orion A molecular cloud. A comparison between sub-mm continuum and near infrared extinction shows a continuum core detection threshold of $A_Vsim$ 5-10 mag. The threshold is similar to the star formation extinction threshold of $A_Vsim$ 7 mag proposed by recent work, suggesting a universal star formation extinction threshold among clouds within 500 pc to the Sun. A comparison between the Orion A cloud and a massive infrared dark cloud G28.37+0.07 indicates that Orion A produces more dense gas within the extinction range 15 mag $lesssim A_V lesssim$ 60 mag. Using data from the CARMA-NRO Orion Survey, we find that dense cores in the integral-shaped filament (ISF) show sub-sonic core-to-envelope velocity dispersion that is significantly less than the local envelope line dispersion, similar to what has been found in nearby clouds. Dynamical analysis indicates that the cores are bound to the ISF. An oscillatory core-to-envelope motion is detected along the ISF. Its origin is to be further explored.
A unique filament is identified in the {it Herschel} maps of the Orion A giant molecular cloud. The filament, which, we name the Stick, is ruler-straight and at an early evolutionary stage. Transverse position-velocity diagrams show two velocity components closing in on the Stick. The filament shows consecutive rings/forks in C$^{18}$O(1-0) channel maps, which is reminiscent of structures generated by magnetic reconnection. We propose that the Stick formed via collision-induced magnetic reconnection (CMR). We use the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code Athena++ to simulate the collision between two diffuse molecular clumps, each carrying an anti-parallel magnetic field. The clump collision produces a narrow, straight, dense filament with a factor of $>$200 increase in density. The production of the dense gas is seven times faster than free-fall collapse. The dense filament shows ring/fork-like structures in radiative transfer maps. Cores in the filament are confined by surface magnetic pressure. CMR can be an important dense-gas-producing mechanism in the Galaxy and beyond.
We identify 45 protostellar outflows in CO maps of the Orion A giant molecular cloud from the CARMA-NRO Orion survey. Our sample includes 11 newly detected outflows. We measure the mass and energetics of the outflows, including material at low-velocities by correcting for cloud contributions. The total momentum and kinetic energy injection rates of outflows is comparable to the turbulent dissipation rate of the cloud. We also compare the outflow position angles to the orientation of C$^{18}$O filaments. We find that the full sample of outflows is consistent with being randomly oriented with respect to the filaments. A subsample of the most reliable measurements shows a moderately perpendicular outflow-filament alignment which may reflect accretion of mass across filaments and onto the protostellar cores.
We present an initial overview of the filamentary structure in the Orion A molecular cloud utilizing a high angular and velocity resolution C$^{18}$O(1-0) emission map that was recently produced as part of the CARMA-NRO Orion Survey. The main goal of this study is to build a credible method to study varying widths of filaments which has previously been linked to star formation in molecular clouds. Due to the diverse star forming activities taking place throughout its $sim$20 pc length, together with its proximity of 388 pc, the Orion A molecular cloud provides an excellent laboratory for such an experiment to be carried out with high resolution and high sensitivity. Using the widely-known structure identification algorithm, DisPerSE, on a 3-dimensional (PPV) C$^{18}$O cube, we identified 625 relatively short (the longest being 1.74 pc) filaments over the entire cloud. We study the distribution of filament widths using FilChaP, a python package that we have developed and made publicly available. We find that the filaments identified in a 2 square degree PPV cube do not overlap spatially, except for the complex OMC-4 region that shows distinct velocity components along the line of sight. The filament widths vary between 0.02 and 0.3 pc depending on the amount of substructure that a filament possesses. The more substructure a filament has, the larger is its width. We also find that despite this variation, the filament width shows no anticorrelation with the central column density which is in agreement with previous Herschel observations.