A submillimetre survey of the kinematics of the Perseus molecular cloud - III. Clump kinematics

TL;DR

This study investigates the kinematics of continuum clumps in the Perseus molecular cloud using C18O data, revealing insights into their dynamics, virial state, and rotation, with implications for star formation processes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of clump kinematics, including linewidths, virial equilibrium, and velocity gradients, using higher resolution data and automated algorithms, offering new insights into star formation precursors.

Findings

Clumps exhibit supersonic linewidths indicating lower-density envelopes.

Protostellar and starless clumps have similar linewidths, suggesting minimal impact of protostars on immediate environment.

Clumps are gravitationally bound and near virial equilibrium.

Abstract

We explore the kinematics of continuum clumps in the Perseus molecular cloud, derived from C18O J=3-2 data. Two populations are examined, identified using the automated algorithms CLFIND and GAUSSCLUMPS on existing SCUBA data. The clumps have supersonic linewidths with distributions which suggest the C18O line probes a lower-density 'envelope' rather than a dense inner core. Similar linewidth distributions for protostellar and starless clumps implies protostars do not have a significant impact on their immediate environment. The proximity to an active young stellar cluster seems to affect the linewidths: those in NGC1333 are greater than elsewhere. In IC348 the proximity to the old IR cluster has little influence, with the linewidths being the smallest of all. A virial analysis suggests that the clumps are bound and close to equipartition. In particular, the starless clumps occupy the same parameter space as the protostars, suggesting they are true stellar precursors and will go on to form stars. We also search for ordered C18O velocity gradients across the face of each core, usually interpreted as rotation. We note a correlation between the directions of the identified gradients and outflows across protostars, indicating we may not have a purely rotational signature. The fitted gradients are larger than found in previous work, probably as a result of the higher resolution of our data and/or outflow contamination. These gradients, if interpreted solely in terms of rotation, suggest that rotation is not dynamically significant. Furthermore, derived specific angular momenta are smaller than observed in previous studies, centred around j~0.001 km/s pc, which indicates we have identified lower levels of rotation, or that the C18O J=3-2 line probes conditions significantly denser and/or colder than n~10^5 per cc and T~10 K.