The Herschel Orion Protostar Survey: Far-infrared Photometry and Colors of Protostars and Their Variations across Orion A and B

Abstract

The degree to which the properties of protostars are affected by environment remains an open question. To investigate this, we look at the Orion A and B molecular clouds, home to most of the protostars within 500 pc. At ~400 pc, Orion is close enough to distinguish individual protostars across a range of environments in terms of both the stellar and gas projected densities. As part of the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey (HOPS), we used the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer to map 108 partially overlapping square fields with edge lengths of 5' or 8' and measure the 70 and 160 μm flux densities of 338 protostars within them. In this paper we examine how these flux densities and their ratio depend on evolutionary state and environment within the Orion complex. We show that Class 0 protostars occupy a region of the 70 μm flux density versus 160 μm/70 μm flux density ratio diagram that is distinct from their more evolved counterparts. We then present evidence that the Integral-Shaped Filament (ISF) and Orion B contain protostars with more massive inner envelopes than those in the more sparsely populated LDN 1641 region. This can be interpreted as evidence for increasing star formation rates in the ISF and Orion B or as a tendency for more massive inner envelopes to be inherited from denser birth environments. We also provide technical details about the mapmaking and photometric procedures used in the HOPS program.

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