Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 1S019

Filament identification and characterisation in Gould Belt Clouds

Salji, Carl (University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory)

Abstract:
It has become well known that the process of star formation is strongly tied to molecular clouds and as such it is of great importance to study and understand their structure (Lombardi et al., 2010, A&A, 519(L7)). Filamentary structure in particular has become an area of great interest as modern sub-mm telescopes have revealed a plethora of complex structure in star forming regions – however, the unbiased statistical analysis of these structures has been difficult to complete (Arzoumanian et al., 2011, A&A, 529(L6)). In this poster, we outline a Hessian based filament identification and extraction technique and apply it to 2 dimensional data sets in the form of SCUBA-2 (Submillimetre common user bolometer array) images. With the identification of the filament spines, one may extract key properties relating to the star formation process such as the velocity dispersion, mass per unit length and radial density/temperature profiles.

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