ALMA observations of a high density core in Taurus: dynamical gas interaction at the possible site of a multiple star formation [SSA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.7574


Starless dense cores eventually collapse dynamically to form protostars in them, and the physical properties of the cores determine the nature of the forming protostars. We report ALMA observations of dust continuum emission and molecular rotational lines toward MC27 or L1521F, which is considered to be very close to a moment of the first protostellar core phase. We found a few starless high-density cores, one of which has a very high density of ~10^7 cm^-3, within a region of several hundred AU around a very low luminosity protostar detected by the Spitzer. A very compact bipolar outflow with a dynamical time scale of a few hundred years was found toward the protostar. The molecular line observation shows several cores with arc-like structure, possibly due to the dynamical gas interaction. These complex structures revealed in the present observations suggest that the initial condition of star formation is highly dynamical in nature, which is considered to be a key factor to understand fundamental issues of star formation such as the formation of multiple stars and the origin of the initial mass function of stars.

Read this paper on arXiv…

K. Tokuda, T. Onishi, K. Saigo, et. al.
Fri, 30 May 14
23/74

Comments: 18 pages, 4 figures, ApJL accepted for publication