Probing the physical and chemical structure of the CS core in LDN 673. Multitransitional and continuum observations

TL;DR

This study investigates the physical and chemical structure of the starless CS core in LDN 673 using high-resolution molecular line and continuum observations, revealing insights into clumpiness, density, and chemical evolution.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed chemical and physical analysis of the clump and inter-clump medium in LDN 673, highlighting transient clumps and their properties.

Findings

Denser clump is more chemically evolved and may fragment further.

Inter-clump medium is denser than expected and chemically young.

Chemical models fit well with the observed abundances, supporting transient clump existence.

Abstract

High-angular resolution observations of dense molecular cores show that these cores can be clumpier at smaller scales, and that some of these clumps can also be unbound or transient. The use of chemical models of the evolution of the molecular gas provides a way to probe the physical properties of the clouds. We study the properties of the clump and inter-clump medium in the starless CS core in LDN 673 by carrying out a molecular line survey with the IRAM 30-m telescope toward two clumps and two inter-clump positions. We also observed the 1.2-mm continuum with the MAMBO-II bolometer at IRAM. The dust continuum map shows four condensations, three of them centrally peaked, coinciding with previously identified sub-millimetre sources. We confirm that the denser clump of the region, $n\sim3.6 \times10^5$\cmt, is also the more chemically evolved, and it could still undergo further fragmentation. The inter-clump medium positions are denser than previously expected, likely $n\sim1\times10^3$--1$\times10^4$\cmt\ due to contamination, and are chemically young, similar to the gas in the lower density clump position. We argue that the density contrast between these positions and their general young chemical age would support the existence of transient clumps in the lower density material of the core. We were also able to find reasonable fits of the observationally derived chemical abundances to models of the chemistry of transient clumps.