L1495 revisited: a ppmap view of a star-forming filament

Abstract

We have analysed the Herschel and SCUBA-2 dust continuum observations of the main filament in the Taurus L1495 star-forming region, using the Bayesian fitting procedure PPMAP. (i) If we construct an average profile along the whole length of the filament, it has FWHM ≃0.087±0.003pc; but the closeness to previous estimates is coincidental. (ii) If we analyse small local sections of the filament, the column-density profile approximates well to the form predicted for hydrostatic equilibrium of an isothermal cylinder. (iii) The ability of PPMAP to distinguish dust emitting at different temperatures, and thereby to discriminate between the warm outer layers of the filament and the cold inner layers near the spine, leads to a significant reduction in the surface-density, Σ⁠, and hence in the line-density, μ. If we adopt the canonical value for the critical line-density at a gas-kinetic temperature of 10K⁠, μ_(CRIT) ≃ 16M⊙pc⁻¹⁠, the filament is on average trans-critical, with μ∼μ_(CRIT); local sections where μ > μ_(CRIT) tend to lie close to prestellar cores. (iv) The ability of PPMAP to distinguish different types of dust, i.e. dust characterized by different values of the emissivity index, β, reveals that the dust in the filament has a lower emissivity index, β ≲ 1.5, than the dust outside the filament, β ≳ 1.7, implying that the physical conditions in the filament have effected a change in the properties of the dust.

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