The Gould's Belt Very Large Array Survey V: The Perseus Region

TL;DR

This study presents deep, high-resolution radio observations of the Perseus star-forming complex, detecting 206 sources including YSOs, and explores their emission properties, evolutionary stages, and relation to X-ray data, revealing insights into star formation processes.

Contribution

First high-resolution, multi-epoch radio survey of the Perseus region focusing on YSOs, providing new data on their radio emission characteristics and evolutionary relations.

Findings

60% of YSOs show non-thermal radio emission

YSOs follow a Güdel-Benz relation with κ=0.03

Identification of 20 YSO candidates among unassociated sources

Abstract

We present multi-epoch, large-scale ($\sim$ 2000 arcmin${}^2$), fairly deep ($\sim$ 16 $\mu$Jy), high-resolution ($\sim$ 1") radio observations of the Perseus star-forming complex obtained with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array at frequencies of 4.5 GHz and 7.5 GHz. These observations were mainly focused on the clouds NGC 1333 and IC 348, although we also observed several fields in other parts of the Perseus complex. We detect a total of 206 sources, 42 of which are associated with young stellar objects (YSOs). The radio properties of about 60% of the YSOs are compatible with a non-thermal radio emission origin. Based on our sample, we find a fairly clear relation between the prevalence of non-thermal radio emission and evolutionary status of the YSOs. By comparing our results with previously reported X-ray observations, we show that YSOs in Perseus follow a G\"udel-Benz relation with $\kappa$ = 0.03 consistent with other regions of star formation. We argue that most of the sources detected in our observations but not associated with known YSOs are extragalactic, but provide a list of 20 unidentified radio sources whose radio properties are consistent with being YSO candidates. Finally we also detect 5 sources with extended emission features which can clearly be associated with radio galaxies.