No Arabic abstract
We analyze the gas mass distribution, the gas kinematics, and the young stellar object (YSO) content of the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) L1482 filament. We derive a Gaia DR2 YSO distance of 511$^{+17}_{-16}$ pc. We derive scale-free power-laws for the mean gas line-mass (M/L) profiles; we calculate the gravitational potential and field profiles consistent with these. We present IRAM 30 m C$^{18}$O (1-0) (and other tracers) position-velocity (PV) diagrams that exhibit complex velocity twisting and turning structures. We find a rotational profile in C$^{18}$O perpendicular to the southern filament ridgeline. The profile is regular, confined ($rlesssim0.4$ pc), anti-symmetric, and to first order linear with a break at $rsim0.25$ pc. The timescales of the inner (outer) gradients are $sim$0.7 (6.0) Myr. We show that the centripetal force, compared to gravity, increases toward the break; when the ratio of forces approaches unity, the profile turns over, just before filament breakup is achieved. The timescales and relative roles of gravity to rotation indicate that the structure is stable, long lived ($sim$ a few times 6 Myr), and undergoing outside-in evolution. Moreover, this filament has practically no star formation, a perpendicular Planck plane-of-the-sky (POS) magnetic field morphology, and POS zig-zag morphology, which together with the rotation profile lead to the suggestion that the 3D shape is a corkscrew filament with a helical magnetic field. These results, combined with results in Orion and G035.39-00.33, suggest evolution toward higher densities as rotating filaments shed angular momentum. Thus, magnetic fields may be an essential feature of high-mass (M $sim10^5$ M$_{odot}$) cloud filament evolution toward cluster formation.
Aims. The process of gravitational fragmentation in the L1482 molecular filament of the California molecular cloud is studied by combining several complementary observations and physical estimates. We investigate the kinematic and dynamical states of this molecular filament and physical properties of several dozens of dense molecular clumps embedded therein. Methods. We present and compare molecular line emission observations of the J=2--1 and J=3--2 transitions of 12CO in this molecular complex, using the KOSMA 3-meter telescope. These observations are complemented with archival data observations and analyses of the 13CO J=1--0 emission obtained at the Purple Mountain Observatory 13.7-meter radio telescope at Delingha Station in QingHai Province of west China, as well as infrared emission maps from the Herschel Space Telescope online archive, obtained with the SPIRE and PACS cameras. Comparison of these complementary datasets allow for a comprehensive multi-wavelength analysis of the L1482 molecular filament. Results. We have identified 23 clumps along the molecular filament L1482 in the California molecular cloud. All these molecular clumps show supersonic non-thermal gas motions. While surprisingly similar in mass and size to the much better known Orion molecular cloud, the formation rate of high-mass stars appears to be suppressed in the California molecular cloud relative to that in the Orion molecular cloud based on the mass-radius threshold derived from the static Bonnor Ebert sphere. Our analysis suggests that these molecular filaments are thermally supercritical and molecular clumps may form by gravitational fragmentation along the filament. Instead of being static, these molecular clumps are most likely in processes of dynamic evolution.
We present the survey of $^{12}$CO/$^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O (J=1-0) toward the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) within the region of 161.75$^{circ} leqslant l leqslant$ 167.75$^{circ}$,-9.5$^{circ} leqslant b leqslant $-7.5$^{circ}$, using the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7 m millimeter telescope. Adopting a distance of 470 pc, the mass of the observed molecular cloud estimated from $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O is about 2.59$times$10$^{4}$ M$_odot$, 0.85$times$10$^{4}$ M$_odot$, and 0.09$times$10$^{4}$ M$_odot$, respectively. A large-scale continuous filament extending about 72 pc is revealed from the $^{13}$CO images. A systematic velocity gradient perpendicular to the major axis appears and is measured to be $sim$ 0.82 km s$^{-1}$ pc$^{-1}$. The kinematics along the filament shows an oscillation pattern with a fragmentation wavelength of $sim$ 2.3 pc and velocity amplitude of $sim$ 0.92 km s$^{-1}$, which may be related with core-forming flows. Furthermore, assuming an inclination angle to the plane of the sky of 45$^{circ}$, the estimated average accretion rate is $sim$ 101 M$_odot$ Myr$^{-1}$ for the cluster LkH$alpha$ 101 and $sim$ 21 M$_odot$ Myr$^{-1}$ for the other regions. In the C$^{18}$O observations, the large-scale filament could be resolved into multiple substructures and their dynamics are consistent with the scenario of filament formation from converging flows. Approximately 225 C$^{18}$O cores are extracted, of which 181 are starless cores. Roughly 37$%$ (67/181) of the starless cores have $alpha_{text{vir}}$ less than 1. Twenty outflow candidates are identified along the filament. Our results indicate active early-phase star formation along the large-scale filament in the CMC region.
We performed a multi-wavelength observation toward LkHa 101 embedded cluster and its adjacent 85arcmin*60arcmin region. The LkHa 101 embedded cluster is the first and only one significant cluster in California molecular cloud (CMC). These observations have revealed that the LkHa 101 embedded cluster is just located at the projected intersectional region of two filaments. One filament is the highest-density section of the CMC, the other is a new identified filament with a low-density gas emission. Toward the projected intersection, we find the bridging features connecting the two filaments in velocity, and identify a V-shape gas structure. These agree with the scenario that the two filaments are colliding with each other. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), we measured that the RRL velocity of the LkHa 101 H II region is 0.5 km/s, which is related to the velocity component of the CMC filament. Moreover, there are some YSOs distributed outside the intersectional region. We suggest that the cloud-cloud collision together with the fragmentation of the main filament may play an important role in the YSOs formation of the cluster.
We aim to reveal the physical properties and chemical composition of the cores in the California molecular cloud (CMC), so as to better understand the initial conditions of star formation. We made a high-resolution column density map (18.2) with Herschel data, and extracted a complete sample of the cores in the CMC with the textsl{fellwalker} algorithm. We performed new single-pointing observations of molecular lines near 90 GHz with the IRAM 30m telescope along the main filament of the CMC. In addition, we also performed a numerical modeling of chemical evolution for the cores under the physical conditions. We extracted 300 cores, of which 33 are protostellar and 267 are starless cores. About 51% (137 of 267) of the starless cores are prestellar cores. Three cores have the potential to evolve into high-mass stars. The prestellar core mass function (CMF) can be well fit by a log-normal form. The high-mass end of the prestellar CMF shows a power-law form with an index $alpha=-0.9pm 0.1$ that is shallower than that of the Galactic field stellar mass function. Combining the mass transformation efficiency ($varepsilon$) from the prestellar core to the star of $15pm 1%$ and the core formation efficiency (CFE) of 5.5%, we suggest an overall star formation efficiency of about 1% in the CMC. In the single-pointing observations with the IRAM 30m telescope, we find that 6 cores show blue-skewed profile, while 4 cores show red-skewed profile. [$rm {HCO}^{+}$]/[HNC] and [$rm {HCO}^{+}$]/$rm [N_{2}H^{+}]$ in protostellar cores are higher than those in prestellar cores; this can be used as chemical clocks. The best-fit chemical age of the cores with line observations is $sim 5times 10^4$~years.
A deep, wide-field, near-infrared imaging survey was used to construct an extinction map of the southeastern part of the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) with $sim$ 0.5 arc min resolution. The same region was also surveyed in the $^{12}$CO(2-1), $^{13}$CO(2-1), C$^{18}$O(2-1) emission lines at the same angular resolution. Strong spatial variations in the abundances of $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O were found to be correlated with variations in gas temperature, consistent with temperature dependent CO depletion/desorption on dust grains. The $^{13}$CO to C$^{18}$O abundance ratio was found to increase with decreasing extinction, suggesting selective photodissociation of C$^{18}$O by the ambient UV radiation field. The cloud averaged X-factor is found to be $<$X$_{rm CO}$$>$ $=$ 2.53 $times$ 10$^{20}$ ${rm cm}^{-2}~({rm K~km~s}^{-1})^{-1}$, somewhat higher than the Milky Way average. On sub-parsec scales we find no single empirical value of the X-factor that can characterize the molecular gas in cold (T$_{rm k}$ $lesssim$ 15 K) regions, with X$_{rm CO}$ $propto$ A$_{rm V}$$^{0.74}$ for A$_{rm V}$ $gtrsim$ 3 magnitudes. However in regions containing relatively hot (T$_{rm ex}$ $gtrsim$ 25 K) gas we find a clear correlation between W($^{12}$CO) and A$_{rm V}$ over a large (3 $lesssim$ A$_{rm V}$ $lesssim$ 25 mag) extinction range. This suggests a constant X$_{rm CO}$ $=$ 1.5 $times$ 10$^{20}$ ${rm cm}^{-2}~({rm K~km~s}^{-1})^{-1}$ for the hot gas, a lower value than either the average for the CMC or Milky Way. We find a correlation between X$_{rm CO}$ and T$_{rm ex}$ with X$_{rm CO}$ $propto$ T$_{rm ex}$$^{-0.7}$ suggesting that the global X-factor of a cloud may depend on the relative amounts of hot gas within it.