Cloud-cloud collision as a trigger of the high-mass star formation; a molecular line study in RCW120

TL;DR

This study investigates the role of cloud-cloud collision in triggering high-mass star formation in RCW120, using molecular line observations that challenge the traditional expanding shell model and support a collision-induced formation scenario.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence for cloud-cloud collision as the mechanism behind high-mass star formation in RCW120, proposing an alternative to the expanding shell model.

Findings

Two molecular clouds are physically associated with RCW120.

No evidence of expanding motion in the velocity space was found.

The collision model explains the ring morphology and cloud coexistence.

Abstract

RCW120 is a Galactic HII region having a beautiful ring shape bright in infrared. Our new CO J=1-0 and J=3-2 observations performed with the NANTEN2, Mopra, and ASTE telescopes have revealed that two molecular clouds with a velocity separation of 20km/s are both physically associated with RCW120. The cloud at -8km/s apparently traces the infrared ring, while the other cloud at -28km/s is distributed just outside the opening of the infrared ring, interacting with the HII region as supported by high kinetic temperature of the molecular gas and by the complementary distribution with the ionized gas. A spherically expanding shell driven by the HII region is usually discussed as the origin of the observed ring structure in RCW120. Our observations, however, indicate no evidence of the expanding motion in the velocity space, being inconsistent with the expanding shell model. We here postulate an alternative that, by applying the model introduced by Habe & Ohta (1992), the exciting O star in RCW120 was formed by a collision between the present two clouds at a colliding velocity ~30km/s. In the model, the observed infrared ring can be interpreted as the cavity created in the larger cloud by the collision, whose inner surface is illuminated by the strong UV radiation after the birth of the O star. We discuss that the present cloud-cloud collision scenario explains the observed signatures of RCW120, i.e., its ring morphology, coexistence of the two clouds and their large velocity separation, and absence of the expanding motion.