Nobeyama 45 m Mapping Observations toward Orion A. II. Classification of cloud structures and variation of the $^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O abundance ratio due to far-UV Radiation

TL;DR

This study classifies structures within the Orion A molecular cloud using CO observations, revealing variations in molecular abundance ratios influenced by far-UV radiation, and identifies distinct cloud groups with differing physical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new classification of Orion A cloud structures based on wide-field CO data and analyzes the variation of $^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O abundance ratios in relation to FUV radiation.

Findings

78 clouds identified and classified into three groups.

$^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O ratio varies from 5.6 to 17.4 among clouds.

Ratio decreases with increasing column density under strong FUV radiation.

Abstract

We present results of the classification of cloud structures toward the Orion A Giant Molecular Cloud based on wide-field $^{12}$CO ($J$ = 1--0), $^{13}$CO ($J$ = 1-0), and C$^{18}$O ($J$ = 1-0) observations using the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope. We identified 78 clouds toward Orion A by applying Spectral Clustering for Interstellar Molecular Emission Segmentation (SCIMES) to the data cube of the column density of $^{13}$CO. Well-known subregions such as OMC-1, OMC-2/3, OMC-4, OMC-5, NGC 1977, L1641-N, and the dark lane south filament (DLSF) are naturally identified as distinct structures in Orion A. These clouds can also be classified into three groups: the integral-shaped filament, the southern regions of Orion A, and the other filamentary structures in the outer parts of Orion A and the DLSF. These groups show differences in scaling relations between the physical properties of the clouds. We derived the abundance ratio between $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O, $X_{^{13}\mathrm{CO}}/X_{\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}}$, which ranges from 5.6 to 17.4 on median over the individual clouds. The significant variation of $X_{^{13}\mathrm{CO}}/X_{\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}}$ is also seen within a cloud in both of the spatial and velocity directions and the ratio tends to be high at the edge of the cloud. The values of $X_{^{13}\mathrm{CO}}/X_{\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}}$ decrease from 17 to 10 with the median of the column densities of the clouds at the column density of $N_{\mathrm{C^{18}O}} \gtrsim 1 \times 10^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$ or visual extinction of $A_V \gtrsim 3$ mag under the strong far-ultraviolet (FUV) environment of $G_0 > 10^{3}$, whereas it is almost independent of the column density in the weak FUV radiation field. These results are explained if the selective photodissociation of C$^{18}$O is enhanced under a strong FUV environment and it is suppressed in the dense part of the clouds.