The Gould's Belt Very Large Array Survey II: The Serpens region

TL;DR

This paper presents deep radio observations of the Serpens molecular cloud, detecting 146 sources including young stellar objects, and analyzes their properties, variability, and proper motions to understand star formation in the region.

Contribution

The study provides the first deep radio survey of the Serpens region, identifying and characterizing YSOs and their emission mechanisms with detailed analysis of variability and proper motions.

Findings

146 sources detected, including 29 YSOs

Approximately 65% of YSOs show non-thermal emission

Proper motions help confirm source membership in W40

Abstract

We present deep ($\sim 17~\mu$Jy) radio continuum observations of the Serpens molecular cloud, the Serpens south cluster, and the W40 region obtained using the Very Large Array in its A configuration. We detect a total of 146 sources, 29 of which are young stellar objects (YSOs), 2 are BV stars and 5 more are associated with phenomena related to YSOs. Based on their radio variability and spectral index, we propose that about 16 of the remaining 110 unclassified sources are also YSOs. For approximately 65% of the known YSOs detected here as radio sources, the emission is most likely non-thermal, and related to stellar coronal activity. As also recently observed in Ophiuchus, our sample of YSOs with X-ray counterparts lies below the fiducial G\"udel & Benz relation. Finally, we analyze the proper motions of 9 sources in the W40 region. This allows us to better constrain the membership of the radio sources in the region.