Synthetic Spectral Signatures from Isothermal Collapsing Gas and the Interpretation of Infall Profiles

TL;DR

This paper uses synthetic spectral modeling of outside-in collapsing cores to show that traditional methods underestimate true infall speeds and misinterpret the dynamics of prestellar core collapse.

Contribution

It introduces a new perspective on core collapse by simulating outside-in infall and demonstrates how standard line modeling can misestimate infall velocities.

Findings

Inferred infall speeds are 25-30% of actual peak speeds.

Good agreement with observed asymmetry parameter changes during collapse.

Large beam HCO+ lines show extreme temperature ratios similar to evolved cores.

Abstract

We revisit the interpretation of blue-excess molecular lines from dense collapsing cores, considering recent numerical results that suggest prestellar core collapse occurs from the outside-in, and not inside-out. We thus create synthetic molecular-line observations of simulated collapsing, spherically-symmetric, density fluctuations of low initial amplitude, embedded in a uniform, globally gravitationally unstable background, without a turbulent component. The collapsing core develops a flattened, Bonnor-Ebert-like density profile, but with an outside-in radial velocity profile, where the peak infall speeds are at large radii, in lower density gas, with cloud-to-core accretion, and no hydrostatic outer envelope. Using optically thick HCO$^+$ J=1-0 and 3-2 rotational lines, we consider several "typical" beamwidths and use a simple line-fitting model to infer infall speeds from the synthetic profiles similarly to what is done in standard line modeling. We find that the inferred infall speeds are ~ 25-30% of the actual peak infall speed as the largest speeds are downweighted by the low density gas in which they occur, due to the outside-in nature of the actual radial collapse profile. Also, with the N$_2$H$^+$ $J_{F_1F}=1_{01}-0_{12}$ hyperfine line, we investigate the change in the asymmetry parameter, $\delta v\equiv(V_{thick}-V_{thin})/\Delta v_{thin}$, during the collapse, finding good agreement with observed values. Finally, the HCO$^+$ J=3-2 lines exhibit extreme $T_b$/$T_r$-ratios like those for evolved cores, for larger beams late in the collapse. Our results suggest that standard dynamical infall reproduces several observed features, but that low-mass core infall speeds are generally undervalued, often interpreted as being subsonic although the actual speeds are supersonic, due to incorrectly assuming an inside-out infall radial velocity profile with a static outer envelope.