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Published November 10, 2013 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Two Mass Distributions in the L 1641 Molecular Clouds: The Herschel Connection of Dense Cores and Filaments in Orion A

Abstract

We present Herschel survey maps of the L 1641 molecular clouds in Orion A. We extracted both the filaments and dense cores in the region. We identified which of the dense sources are proto- or pre-stellar, and studied their association with the identified filaments. We find that although most (71%) of the pre-stellar sources are located on filaments there, is still a significant fraction of sources not associated with such structures. We find that these two populations (on and off the identified filaments) have distinctly different mass distributions. The mass distribution of the sources on the filaments is found to peak at 4 M_☉ and drives the shape of the core mass function (CMF) at higher masses, which we fit with a power law of the form dN/dlogM∝M^(–1.4 ± 0.4). The mass distribution of the sources off the filaments, on the other hand, peaks at 0.8 M_☉ and leads to a flattening of the CMF at masses lower than ~4 M_☉. We postulate that this difference between the mass distributions is due to the higher proportion of gas that is available in the filaments, rather than in the diffuse cloud.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 August 1; accepted 2013 October 3; published 2013 October 25. Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA. We thank Dr. Despoina Hatzidimitriou and Scige John Liu for useful discussions and comments. We wish to thank the anonymous referee for comments that improved the manuscript. PACS has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by MPE (Germany) and including UVIE (Austria); KU Leuven, CSL, IMEC (Belgium); CEA, LAM (France); MPIA (Germany); INAFIFSI /OAA/OAP/OAT, LENS, SISSA (Italy); IAC (Spain). This development has been supported by the funding agencies BMVIT (Austria), ESA-PRODEX (Belgium), CEA/CNES (France), DLR (Germany), ASI/INAF (Italy), and CICYT/MCYT (Spain). SPIRE has been developed by a consortium of institutes led by Cardiff University (UK) and including Univ. Lethbridge (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, LAM (France); IFSI, Univ. Padua (Italy); IAC (Spain); Stockholm Observatory (Sweden); Imperial College London, RAL, UCLMSSL, UKATC, Univ. Sussex (UK); and Caltech, JPL, NHSC, Univ. Colorado (USA). This development has been supported by national funding agencies: CSA (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, CNES, CNRS (France); ASI (Italy); MCINN (Spain); SNSB (Sweden); STFC (UK); and NASA (USA). HIPE is a joint development by the Herschel Science Ground Segment Consortium, consisting of ESA, the NASA Herschel Science Center, and the HIFI, PACS and SPIRE consortia. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System. D.P. is funded through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" that is co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund) and Greek national funds; K.L.J.R., G.B., D.E. and M.P. are funded by ASI fellowships under contract numbers I/005/11/00, I/038/08/0 and I/029/12/0.

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Published - 2041-8205_777_2_L33.pdf

Submitted - 1309.2332v2.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023