Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Dipen Sahu
Sheng-Yuan Liu
Doug Johnstone
Tie Liu
Neal J. Evans
Naomi Hirano
Kenichi Tatematsu
James Di Francesco
Chin-Fei Lee
Kee-Tae Kim
Somnath Dutta
Shih-Ying Hsu
Shanghuo Li
Qiu-Yi Luo
Patricio Sanhueza
Hsien Shang
Alessio Traficante
Mika Juvela
Chang Won Lee
David J. Eden
Abstract： Starless cores represent the initial stage of evolution toward (proto)star formation, and a subset of them, known as prestellar cores, with high density (~ 10^6 cm^-3 or higher) and being centrally concentrated are expected to be embryos of (proto)stars. Determining the density profile of prestellar cores, therefore provides an important opportunity to gauge the initial conditions of star formation. In this work, we perform rigorous modeling to estimate the density profiles of three nearly spherical prestellar cores among a sample of five highly dense cores detected by our recent observations. We employed multi-scale observational data of the (sub)millimeter dust continuum emission including those obtained by SCUBA-2 on the JCMT with a resolution of ~5600 au and by multiple ALMA observations with a resolution as high as ~480 au. We are able to consistently reproduce the observed multi-scale dust continuum images of the cores with a simple prescribed density profile, which bears an inner region of flat density and a r^-2 profile toward the outer region. By utilizing the peak density and the size of the inner flat region as a proxy for the dynamical stage of the cores, we find that the three modeled cores are most likely unstable and prone to collapse. The sizes of the inner flat regions, as compact as ~500 au, signify them being the highly evolved prestellar cores rarely found to date.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Hong-Li Liu
Anandmayee Tej
Tie Liu
Patricio Sanhueza
Shengli Qin
Jinhua He
Paul F. Goldsmith
Guido Garay
Sirong Pan
Kaho Morii
Shanghuo Li
Amelia Stutz
Keníchi Tatematsu
Feng-Wei Xu
Leonardo Bronfman
Anindya Saha
Namitha Issac
Tapas Baug
L. Viktor Toth
Lokesh Dewangan
Abstract： We present a statistical study of a sample of 17 hub-filament-system (HFS) clouds of high-mass star formation using high-angular resolution ($\sim$1-2 arcsecond) ALMA 1.3mm and 3mm continuum data. The sample includes 8 infrared (IR)-dark and 9 IR-bright types, which correspond to an evolutionary sequence from the IR-dark to IR-bright stage. The central massive clumps and their associated most massive cores are observed to follow a trend of increasing mass ($M$) and mass surface density ($\Sigma$) with evolution from IR-dark to IR-bright stage. In addition, a mass-segregated cluster of young stellar objects (YSOs) are revealed in both IR-dark and IR-bright HFSs with massive YSOs located in the hub and the population of low-mass YSOs distributed over larger areas. Moreover, outflow feedback in all HFSs are found to escape preferentially through the inter-filamentary diffuse cavities, suggesting that outflows would render a limited effect on the disruption of the HFSs and ongoing high-mass star formation therein. From the above observations, we suggest that high-mass star formation in the HFSs can be described by a multi-scale mass accretion/transfer scenario, from hub-composing filaments through clumps down to cores, that can naturally lead to a mass-segregated cluster of stars.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Dipen Sahu
Sheng-Yuan Liu
Tie Liu
Neal J. Evans
Naomi Hirano
Ken'ichi Tatematsu
Chin-Fei Lee
Kee-Tae Kim
Somnath Dutta
Dana Alina
Leonardo Bronfman
Maria Cunningham
David J. Eden
Guido Garay
Paul F. Goldsmith
Jinhua He
Shih-Ying Hsu
Kai-Syun Jhan
Doug Johnstone
Mika Juvela
Abstract： Prestellar cores are self-gravitating dense and cold structures within molecular clouds where future stars are born. They are expected, at the stage of transitioning to the protostellar phase, to harbor centrally concentrated dense (sub)structures that will seed the formation of a new star or the binary/multiple stellar systems. Characterizing this critical stage of evolution is key to our understanding of star formation. In this work, we report the detection of high density (sub)structures on the thousand-au scale in a sample of dense prestellar cores. Through our recent ALMA observations towards the Orion molecular cloud, we have found five extremely dense prestellar cores, which have centrally concentrated regions $\sim$ 2000 au in size, and several $10^7$ $cm^{-3}$ in average density. Masses of these centrally dense regions are in the range of 0.30 to 6.89 M$_\odot$. {\it For the first time}, our higher resolution observations (0.8$'' \sim $ 320 au) further reveal that one of the cores shows clear signatures of fragmentation; such individual substructures/fragments have sizes of 800 -1700 au, masses of 0.08 to 0.84 M$_\odot$, densities of $2 - 8\times 10^7$ $cm^{-3}$ and separations of $\sim 1200$ au. The substructures are massive enough ($\gtrsim 0.1~M_\odot$) to form young stellar objects and are likely examples of the earliest stage of stellar embryos which can lead to widely ($\sim$ 1200 au) separated multiple systems.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Jian-Wen Zhou
Tie Liu
Neal J. Evans
Guido Garay
Paul F. Goldsmith
Gilberto C. Gomez
Enrique Vazquez-Semadeni
Hong-Li Liu
Amelia M. Stutz
Ke Wang
Mika Juvela
Jinhua He
Di Li
Leonardo Bronfman
Xunchuan Liu
Feng-Wei Xu
Anandmayee Tej
L. K. Dewangan
Shanghuo Li
Siju Zhang
Abstract： We investigate the presence of hub-filament systems in a large sample of 146 active proto-clusters, using H$^{13}$CO$^{+}$ J=1-0 molecular line data obtained from the ATOMS survey. We find that filaments are ubiquitous in proto-clusters, and hub-filament systems are very common from dense core scales ($\sim$0.1 pc) to clump/cloud scales ($\sim$1-10 pc). The proportion of proto-clusters containing hub-filament systems decreases with increasing dust temperature ($T_d$) and luminosity-to-mass ratios ($L/M$) of clumps, indicating that stellar feedback from H{\sc ii} regions gradually destroys the hub-filament systems as proto-clusters evolve. Clear velocity gradients are seen along the longest filaments with a mean velocity gradient of 8.71 km s$^{-1}$pc$^{-1}$ and a median velocity gradient of 5.54 km s$^{-1}$pc$^{-1}$. We find that velocity gradients are small for filament lengths larger than $\sim$1~pc, probably hinting at the existence of inertial inflows, although we cannot determine whether the latter are driven by large-scale turbulence or large-scale gravitational contraction. In contrast, velocity gradients below $\sim$1~pc dramatically increase as filament lengths decrease, indicating that the gravity of the hubs or cores starts to dominate gas infall at small scales. We suggest that self-similar hub-filament systems and filamentary accretion at all scales may play a key role in high-mass star formation.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Hong-Li Liu
Tie Liu
Neal J. Evans
Ke Wang
Guido Garay
Sheng-Li Qin
Shanghuo Li
Amelia Stutz
Paul F. Goldsmith
Sheng-Yuan Liu
Anandmayee Tej
Qizhou Zhang
Mika Juvela
Di Li
Jun-Zhi Wang
Leonardo Bronfman
Zhiyuan Ren
Yue-Fang Wu
Kee-Tae Kim
Chang-Won Lee
Abstract： We have identified 453 compact dense cores in 3 mm continuum emission maps in the ATOMS (ALMA Three-millimeter Observations of Massive Star-forming regions) survey, and compiled three catalogues of high-mass star forming cores. One catalogue, referred to as H/UC-HII catalogue, includes 89 cores that enshroud hyper/ultra compact (H/UC) HII regions as characterized by associated compact H40alpha emission. A second catalogue, referred to as pure s-cHMC, includes 32 candidate Hot Molecular Cores (HMCs) showing rich spectra (N>20lines) of complex organic molecules (COMs) but not associated with H/UC-HII regions. The third catalogue, referred to as pure w-cHMC, includes 58 candidate HMCs with relatively low levels of COM richness and not associated with H/UC-HII regions. These three catalogues of dense cores provide an important foundation for future studies of the early stages of high-mass star formation across the Milky Way. We also find that nearly half of H/UC-HII cores are candidate HMCs. From the number counts of COM-containing and H/UC-HII cores, we suggest that the duration of high-mass protostellar cores showing chemically rich features is at least comparable to the lifetime of H/UC-HII regions. For cores in the H/UC-HII catalogue, the width of the H40alpha line increases as the core size decreases, suggesting that the non-thermal dynamical and/or pressure line-broadening mechanisms dominate on the smaller scales of the H/UC-HII cores.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Jian-Wen Zhou
Tie Liu
Jin-Zeng Li
Hong-Li Liu
Ke Wang
Feng-Wei Xu
Kee-Tae Kim
Chang Won Lee
Lokesh Dewangan
Kenichi Tatematsu
Shanghuo Li
Xun-Chuan Liu
Mengyao Tang
Zhiyuan Ren
Guo-Yin Zhang
Chao Zhang
Rong Liu
Qiu-Yi Luo
Isabelle Ristorcelli
Abstract： Filaments play an important role in star formation, but the formation process of filaments themselves is still unclear. The high-mass star forming clump G286.21+0.17 (G286 for short) that contains an "L" type filament was thought to undergo global collapse. Our high resolution ALMA band 3 observations resolve the gas kinematics of G286 and reveal two sub-clumps with very different velocities inside it. We find that the "blue profile" (an indicator of gas infall) of HCO+ lines in single dish observations of G286 is actually caused by gas emission from the two sub-clumps rather than gas infall. We advise great caution in interpreting gas kinematics (e.g., infall) from line profiles toward distant massive clumps in single dish observations. Energetic outflows are identified in G286 but the outflows are not strong enough to drive expansion of the two sub-clumps. The two parts of the "L" type filament ("NW-SE" and "NE-SW" filaments) show prominent velocity gradients perpendicular to their major axes, indicating that they are likely formed due to large-scale compression flows. We argue that the large-scale compression flows could be induced by the expansion of nearby giant HII regions. The "NW-SE" and "NE-SW" filaments seem to be in collision, and a large amount of gas has been accumulated in the junction region where the most massive core G286c1 forms.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Hong-Li Liu
Anandmayee Tej
Tie Liu
Namitha Issac
Anindya Saha
Paul F. Goldsmith
Jun-Zhi Wang
Qizhou Zhang
Sheng-Li Qin
Ke Wang
Shanghuo Li
Archana Soam
Lokesh Dewangan
Chang Won Lee
Pak-Shing Li
Xun-Chuan Liu
Yong Zhang
Zhiyuan Ren
Mika Juvela
Leonardo Bronfman
Abstract： We present new 3-mm continuum and molecular lines observations from the ATOMS survey towards the massive protostellar clump, MM1, located in the filamentary infrared dark cloud (IRDC), G034.43+00.24 (G34). The lines observed are the tracers of either dense gas (e.g. HCO+/H13CO+ J = 1-0) or outflows (e.g. CS J = 2-1). The most complete picture to date of seven cores in MM1 is revealed by dust continuum emission. These cores are found to be gravitationally bound, with virial parameter, $\alpha_{vir}<2$. At least four outflows are identified in MM1 with a total outflowing mass of $\sim 45 M_\odot$, and a total energy of $\sim 1\times 10^{47}$ erg, typical of outflows from a B0-type star. Evidence of hierarchical fragmentation, where turbulence dominates over thermal pressure, is observed at both the cloud and the clump scales. This could be linked to the scale-dependent, dynamical mass inflow/accretion on clump and core scales. We therefore suggest that the G34 cloud could be undergoing a dynamical mass inflow/accretion process linked to the multiscale fragmentation, which leads to the sequential formation of fragments of the initial cloud, clumps, and ultimately dense cores, the sites of star formation.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Astronomy >> Astrophysical processes submitted time 2023-02-19
Hong-Li Liu
Anandmayee Tej
Tie Liu
Patricio Sanhueza
Shengli Qin
Jinhua He
Paul F. Goldsmith
Guido Garay
Sirong Pan
Kaho Morii
Shanghuo Li
Amelia Stutz
Keníchi Tatematsu
Feng-Wei Xu
Leonardo Bronfman
Anindya Saha
Namitha Issac
Tapas Baug
L. Viktor Toth
Lokesh Dewangan
Abstract： We present a statistical study of a sample of 17 hub-filament-system (HFS) clouds of high-mass star formation using high-angular resolution ($\sim$1-2 arcsecond) ALMA 1.3mm and 3mm continuum data. The sample includes 8 infrared (IR)-dark and 9 IR-bright types, which correspond to an evolutionary sequence from the IR-dark to IR-bright stage. The central massive clumps and their associated most massive cores are observed to follow a trend of increasing mass ($M$) and mass surface density ($\Sigma$) with evolution from IR-dark to IR-bright stage. In addition, a mass-segregated cluster of young stellar objects (YSOs) are revealed in both IR-dark and IR-bright HFSs with massive YSOs located in the hub and the population of low-mass YSOs distributed over larger areas. Moreover, outflow feedback in all HFSs are found to escape preferentially through the inter-filamentary diffuse cavities, suggesting that outflows would render a limited effect on the disruption of the HFSs and ongoing high-mass star formation therein. From the above observations, we suggest that high-mass star formation in the HFSs can be described by a multi-scale mass accretion/transfer scenario, from hub-composing filaments through clumps down to cores, that can naturally lead to a mass-segregated cluster of stars.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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