Catalogue of 12CO(J=1-0) and 13CO(J=1-0) Molecular Clouds in the Carina Flare Supershell

TL;DR

This paper catalogs molecular clouds in the Carina Flare supershell using CO emission data, revealing their physical properties and supporting the idea that expanding shells help sustain high-altitude molecular layers.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive catalog of CO clouds in the Carina Flare supershell with detailed physical parameters and analysis of their distribution and dynamics.

Findings

156 12CO clouds identified with physical parameters.

High-altitude molecular clouds are associated with the supershell.

Cloud properties are consistent with Galactic samples.

Abstract

We present a catalogue of 12CO(J=1-0) and 13CO(J=1-0) molecular clouds in the spatio-velocity range of the Carina Flare supershell, GSH 287+04-17. The data cover a region of ~66 square degrees and were taken with the NANTEN 4m telescope, at spatial and velocity resolutions of 2.6' and 0.1 km/s. Decomposition of the emission results in the identification of 156 12CO clouds and 60 13CO clouds, for which we provide observational and physical parameters. Previous work suggests the majority of the detected mass forms part of a comoving molecular cloud complex that is physically associated with the expanding shell. The cloud internal velocity dispersions, degree of virialization and size-linewidth relations are found to be consistent with those of other Galactic samples. However, the vertical distribution is heavily skewed towards high-altitudes. The robust association of high-z molecular clouds with a known supershell provides some observational backing for the theory that expanding shells contribute to the support of a high-altitude molecular layer.