We report the first detection of the J = 1 - 0 (102.6 GHz) rotational lines of CF+ (fluoromethylidynium ion) towards CygX-N63, a young and massive protostar of the Cygnus X region. This detection occurred as part of an unbiased spectral survey of thi
s object in the 0.8-3 mm range, performed with the IRAM 30m telescope. The data were analyzed using a local thermodynamical equilibrium model (LTE model) and a population diagram in order to derive the column density. The line velocity (-4 km s-1) and line width (1.6 km s-1) indicate an origin from the collapsing envelope of the protostar. We obtain a CF+ column density of 4.10e11 cm-2. The CF+ ion is thought to be a good tracer for C+ and assuming a ratio of 10e-6 for CF+/C+, we derive a total number of C+ of 1.2x10e53 within the beam. There is no evidence of carbon ionization caused by an exterior source of UV photons suggesting that the protostar itself is the source of ionization. Ionization from the protostellar photosphere is not efficient enough. In contrast, X-ray ionization from the accretion shock(s) and UV ionization from outflow shocks could provide a large enough ionizing power to explain our CF+ detection. Surprisingly, CF+ has been detected towards a cold, massive protostar with no sign of an external photon dissociation region (PDR), which means that the only possibility is the existence of a significant inner source of C+. This is an important result that opens interesting perspectives to study the early development of ionized regions and to approach the issue of the evolution of the inner regions of collapsing envelopes of massive protostars. The existence of high energy radiations early in the evolution of massive protostars also has important implications for chemical evolution of dense collapsing gas and could trigger peculiar chemistry and early formation of a hot core.
DR21(OH) is a pc-scale massive, 7000 Msun clump hosting three massive dense cores (MDCs) at an early stage of their evolution. We present a high angular-resolution mosaic, covering 70 by 100, with the IRAM PdBI at 3 mm to trace the dust continuum emi
ssion and the N2H+ (J=1-0) and CH3CN (J=5-4) molecular emission. The cold, dense gas traced by the compact emission in N2H+ is associated with the three MDCs and shows several velocity components towards each MDC. These velocity components reveal local shears in the velocity fields which are best interpreted as convergent flows. Moreover, we report the detection of weak extended emission from CH3CN at the position of the N2H+ velocity shears. We propose that this extended CH3CN emission is tracing warm gas associated with the low-velocity shocks expected at the location of convergence of the flows where velocity shears are observed. This is the first detection of low-velocity shocks associated with small (sub-parsec) scale convergent flows which are proposed to be at the origin of the densest structures and of the formation of (high-mass) stars. In addition, we propose that MDCs may be active sites of star-formation for more than a crossing time as they continuously receive material from larger scale flows as suggested by the global picture of dynamical, gravity driven evolution of massive clumps which is favored by the present observations.
The Herschel OB young stellar objects survey (HOBYS) has observed the Rosette molecular cloud, providing an unprecedented view of its star formation activity. These new far-infrared data reveal a population of compact young stellar objects whose phys
ical properties we aim to characterise. We compiled a sample of protostars and their spectral energy distributions that covers the near-infrared to submillimetre wavelength range. These were used to constrain key properties in the protostellar evolution, bolometric luminosity, and envelope mass and to build an evolutionary diagram. Several clusters are distinguished including the cloud centre, the embedded clusters in the vicinity of luminous infrared sources, and the interaction region. The analysed protostellar population in Rosette ranges from 0.1 to about 15 Msun with luminosities between 1 and 150 Lsun, which extends the evolutionary diagram from low-mass protostars into the high-mass regime. Some sources lack counterparts at near- to mid-infrared wavelengths, indicating extreme youth. The central cluster and the Phelps & Lada 7 cluster appear less evolved than the remainder of the analysed protostellar population. For the central cluster, we find indications that about 25% of the protostars classified as Class I from near- to mid-infrared data are actually candidate Class 0 objects. As a showcase for protostellar evolution, we analysed four protostars of low- to intermediate-mass in a single dense core, and they represent different evolutionary stages from Class 0 to Class I. Their mid- to far-infrared spectral slopes flatten towards the Class I stage, and the 160 to 70um flux ratio is greatest for the presumed Class 0 source. This shows that the Herschel observations characterise the earliest stages of protostellar evolution in detail.
As part of the science demonstration phase of the Herschel mission of the Gould Belt Key Program, the Aquila Rift molecular complex has been observed. The complete ~ 3.3deg x 3.3deg imaging with SPIRE 250/350/500 micron and PACS 70/160 micron allows
a deep investigation of embedded protostellar phases, probing of the dust emission from warm inner regions at 70 and 160 micron to the bulk of the cold envelopes between 250 and 500 micron. We used a systematic detection technique operating simultaneously on all Herschel bands to build a sample of protostars. Spectral energy distributions are derived to measure luminosities and envelope masses, and to place the protostars in an M_env - L_bol evolutionary diagram. The spatial distribution of protostars indicates three star-forming sites in Aquila, with W40/Sh2-64 HII region by far the richest. Most of the detected protostars are newly discovered. For a reduced area around the Serpens South cluster, we could compare the Herschel census of protostars with Spitzer results. The Herschel protostars are younger than in Spitzer with 7 Class 0 YSOs newly revealed by Herschel. For the entire Aquila field, we find a total of ~ 45-60 Class 0 YSOs discovered by Herschel. This confirms the global statistics of several hundred Class~0 YSOs that should be found in the whole Gould Belt survey.
We present Plateau de Bure interferometer observations obtained in continuum at 1.3 and 3.5 mm towards the six most massive and young (IR-quiet) dense cores in Cygnus X. Located at only 1.7 kpc, the Cygnus X region offers the opportunity of reaching
small enough scales (of the order of 1700 AU at 1.3 mm) to separate individual collapsing objects. The cores are sub-fragmented with a total of 23 fragments inside 5 cores. Only the most compact core, CygX-N63, could actually be a single massive protostar with an envelope mass as large as 60 Msun. The fragments in the other cores have sizes and separations similar to low-mass pre-stellar and proto-stellar condensations in nearby protoclusters, and are probably of the same nature. A total of 9 out of these 23 protostellar objects are found to be probable precursors of OB stars with envelope masses ranging from 6 to 23 Msun. The level of fragmentation is globally higher than in the turbulence regulated, monolithic collapse scenario, but is not as high as expected in a pure gravo-turbulent scenario where the distribution of mass is dominated by low-mass protostars/stars. Here, the fractions of the total core masses in the high-mass fragments are reaching values as high as 28, 44, and 100 % in CygX-N12, CygX-N53, and CygX-N63, respectively, much higher than what an IMF-like mass distribution would predict. The increase of the fragmentation efficiency as a function of density in the cores is proposed to be due to the increasing importance of self-gravity leading to gravitational collapse at the scale of the dense cores. At the same time, the cores tend to fragment into a few massive protostars within their central regions. We are therefore probably witnessing here the primordial mass segregation of clusters in formation.
The study of physical and chemical properties of massive protostars is critical to better understand the evolutionary sequence which leads to the formation of high-mass stars. IRAS 18151-1208 is a nearby massive region (d = 3kpc, L ~ 20000 Lsun) whic
h splits into three cores: MM1, MM2 and MM3 (separated by 1-2). We aim at (1) studying the physical and chemical properties of the individual MM1, MM2 and MM3 cores; (2) deriving their evolutionary stages; (3) using these results to improve our view of the evolutionary sequence of massive cores. The region was observed in the CS, C34S, H2CO, HCO+, H13CO+, and N2H+ lines at mm wavelengths with the IRAM 30m and Mopra telescopes. We use 1D and 2D modeling of the dust continuum to derive the density and temperature distributions, which are then used in the RATRAN code to model the lines and constrain the abundances of the observed species. All the lines were detected in MM1 and MM2. MM3 shows weaker emission, or even is undetected in HCO+ and all isotopic species. MM2 is driving a newly discovered CO outflow and hosts a mid-IR-quiet massive protostar. The abundance of CS is significantly larger in MM1 than in MM2, but smaller than in a reference massive protostar such as AFGL2591. In contrast the N2H+ abundance decreases from MM2 to MM1, and is larger than in AFGL2591. Both MM1 and MM2 host an early phase massive protostar, but MM2 (and mid-IR-quiet sources in general) is younger and more dominated by the host protostar than MM1 (mid-IR-bright). The MM3 core is probably in a pre-stellar phase. We find that the N2H+/C34S ratio varies systematically with age in the massive protostars for which the data are available. It can be used to identify young massive protostars.
As Pr. Th. Henning said at the conference, cold precursors of high-mass stars are now hot topics. We here propose some observational criteria to identify massive infrared-quiet dense cores which can host the high-mass analogs of Class 0 protostars an
d pre-stellar condensations. We also show how far-infrared to millimeter imaging surveys of entire complexes forming OB stars are starting to unveil the initial conditions of high-mass star formation.
(abridged) Our project endeavors to obtain a robust view of multiplicity among embedded Class I and Flat Spectrum protostars in a wide array of nearby molecular clouds to disentangle ``universal from cloud-dependent processes. We have used near-infra
red adaptive optics observations at the VLT through the H, Ks and L filters to search for tight companions to 45 Class I and Flat Spectrum protostars located in 4 different molecular clouds (Taurus-Auriga, Ophiuchus, Serpens and L1641 in Orion). We complemented these observations with published high-resolution surveys of 13 additional objects in Taurus and Ophiuchus. We found multiplicity rates of 32+/-6% and 47+/-8% over the 45-1400 AU and 14-1400 AU separation ranges, respectively. These rates are in excellent agreement with those previously found among T Tauri stars in Taurus and Ophiuchus, and represent an excess of a factor ~1.7 over the multiplicity rate of solar-type field stars. We found no non-hierarchical triple systems, nor any quadruple or higher-order systems. No significant cloud-to-cloud difference has been found, except for the fact that all companions to low-mass Orion protostars are found within 100 AU of their primaries whereas companions found in other clouds span the whole range probed here. Based on this survey, we conclude that core fragmentation always yields a high initial multiplicity rate, even in giant molecular clouds such as the Orion cloud or in clustered stellar populations as in Serpens, in contrast with predictions of numerical simulations. The lower multiplicity rate observed in clustered Class II and Class III populations can be accounted for by a universal set of properties for young systems and subsequent ejections through close encounters with unrelated cluster members.
We have made an extensive 1.2mm continuum mosaicing study of the Cygnus X molecular cloud complex using the MAMBO cameras at the IRAM 30 m telescope. We then compared our mm maps with mid-IR images, and have made SiO(2-1) follow-up observations of th
e best candidate progenitors of high-mass stars. Our complete study of Cygnus X provides, for the first time, an unbiased census of massive young stellar objects. We discover 129 massive dense cores, among which 42 are probable precursors of high-mass stars. Our study qualifies 17 cores as good candidates for hosting massive IR-quiet protostars, while up to 25 cores potentially host high-luminosity IR protostars. We fail to discover the high-mass analogs of pre-stellar dense cores in CygnusX, but find several massive starless clumps that might be gravitationally bound. Since our sample is derived from a single molecular complex and covers every embedded phase of high-mass star formation, it gives the first statistical estimates of their lifetime. In contrast to what is found for low-mass class 0 and class I phases, the IR-quiet protostellar phase of high-mass stars may last as long as their better-known high-luminosity IR phase. The statistical lifetimes of high-mass protostars and pre-stellar cores (~ 3 x 10^4 yr and < 10^3 yr) in Cygnus X are one and two order(s) of magnitude smaller, respectively, than what is found in nearby, low-mass star-forming regions. We therefore propose that high-mass pre-stellar and protostellar cores are in a highly dynamic state, as expected in a molecular cloud where turbulent processes dominate.
