# High-mass star formation in Orion possibly triggered by cloud-cloud collision III, NGC2068 and NGC2071

## TL;DR

This study investigates high-mass star formation in Orion's NGC2068 and NGC2071 regions, proposing that cloud-cloud collisions triggered the formation of massive stars, supported by molecular line observations and collision simulations.

## Contribution

It presents evidence that cloud-cloud collisions have played a significant role in triggering high-mass star formation in Orion, a novel hypothesis supported by new observational and simulation data.

## Key findings

- Two velocity components at 9.0 and 10.5 km/s are identified.
- Complementary cloud distributions suggest past collision.
- Estimated collision occurred 0.3 Myr ago at 3.0 km/s.

## Abstract

Using the NANTEN2 Observatory, we carried out a molecular line study of high-mass star forming regions with reflection nebulae, NGC 2068 and NGC 2071, in Orion in the 13CO(J=2-1) transition. The 13CO distribution shows that there are two velocity components at 9.0 and 10.5 km/s . The blue-shifted component is in the northeast associated with NGC 2071, whereas the red-shifted component is in the southwest associated with NGC 2068. The total intensity distribution of the two clouds shows a gap of ~1 pc, suggesting that they are detached at present. A detailed spatial comparison indicates that the two show complementary distributions. The blue-shifted component lies toward an intensity depression to the northwest of the red-shifted component, where we find that a displacement of 0.8 pc makes the two clouds fit well with each other. Furthermore, a new simulation of non-frontal collisions shows that observations from 60 degrees off the collisional axis agreed well with the velocity structure in this region. On the basis of these results, we hypothesize that the two components collided with each other at a projected relative velocity 3.0 km/s estimated to be 0.3 Myr for an assumed axis of the relative motion 60 degrees off the line of sight. We assume that the two most massive early B-type stars in the cloud, illuminating stars of the two reflection nebulae, were formed by collisional triggering at the interfaces between the two clouds. Given the other young high-mass star forming regions, namely, M42, M43, and NGC 2024 (Fukui et al. 2018b; Ohama et al. 2017a), it seems possible that collisional triggering has been independently working to form O-type and early B-type stars in Orion in the last Myr over a projected distance of ~80 pc.