Spectroscopic Evidence for Gas Infall in GF9-2

TL;DR

This study provides spectroscopic evidence of gas infall in the GF9-2 protostar core, confirming theoretical collapse models and estimating the infall velocity and accretion rate.

Contribution

First direct spectroscopic confirmation of gas infall in GF9-2 supporting the Larson-Penston-Hunter collapse model.

Findings

Gas infall velocity of ~0.5 km/s in the core

Mass accretion rate of 2.5x10^{-5} Msun/yr

Infall consistent with theoretical collapse models

Abstract

We present spectroscopic evidence for infall motion of gas in the natal cloud core harboring an extremely young low-mass protostar GF9-2. We previously discussed that the ongoing collapse of the GF9-2 core has agreement with the Larson-Penston-Hunter (LPH) theoretical solution for the gravitational collapse of a core (Furuya et al.; paper I). To discuss the gas infall on firmer ground, we have carried out On-The-Fly mapping observations of the HCO+ (1--0) line using the Nobeyama 45m telescope equipped with the 25 Beam Array Receiver System. Furthermore, we observed the HCN (1--0) line with the 45m telescope, and the HCO+ (3--2) line with the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory 10.4 m telescope. The optically thick HCO+ and HCN lines show blueskewed profiles whose deepest absorptions are seen at the peak velocity of optically thin lines, i.e., the systemic velocity of the cloud (paper I), indicating the presence of gas infall toward the central protostar. We compared the observed HCO+ line profiles with model ones by solving the radiative transfer in the core under LTE assumption.We found that the core gas has a constant infall velocity of ~0.5 km/s in the central region, leading to a mass accretion rate of 2.5x10^{-5} Msun/yr. Consequently, we confirm that the gas infall in the GF9-2 core is consistent with the LPH solution.