Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013
Poster 1S031
A Detailed Look at the Perseus Molecular Cloud with Herschel
Sadavoy, Sarah (University of Victoria)
Di Francesco, James (NRC)
Andre, Philippe (Saclay)
Pezzuto, Stefano (INAF-IAPS)
Abstract:
We present new Herschel observations at 70, 160, 250, 350, and 500 microns of the nearby Perseus molecular cloud from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey. The Herschel observations are used to characterize and contrast the properties of the seven star-forming clumps in Perseus, and to study their embedded core populations. For the B1-E clump, we identify substructures for the first time,
and using complementary molecular line data, we demonstrate that B1-E is likely fragmenting into a first generation of dense cores in relative isolation. Such a core formation region has never been observed before. For the B1 clump, we include complementary long wavelength observations at 850 microns from SCUBA-2 to constrain better its dust properties. We find evidence of dust grain growth towards the dense cores in B1. Finally, we perform a uniform analysis of the core properties within each clump using the Herschel data, and we characterize the populations of young stellar objects (YSOs) with archival infrared data. We find that the starless cores are typically associated with peaks in the column density, where those found towards higher regions of column density also have higher average densities and colder temperatures. Also, we find that the clumps with the highest fractions of dense material have the highest fractions of the youngest YSOs. This relation suggests that the quantity of high column density material corresponds to recent star formation activity.
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