Chemical analysis of prestellar cores in Ophiuchus yields short timescales and rapid collapse

TL;DR

This study combines chemical observations and magneto-hydrodynamical simulations to show that prestellar cores in Ophiuchus form rapidly, with collapse timescales comparable to free-fall times, supporting fast collapse models over slow, magnetically supported ones.

Contribution

It provides the first combined observational and simulation-based evidence favoring rapid gravitational collapse in prestellar cores, challenging traditional slow-collapse theories.

Findings

Chemical abundance ratios indicate short core ages (~200 kyr).

Simulations match observed core properties and support free-fall collapse timescales.

Fast collapse models reproduce observed chemical and dynamical parameters.

Abstract

Sun-like stars form from the contraction of cold and dense interstellar clouds. How the collapse proceeds and what are the main physical processes driving it, however, is still under debate and a final consensus on the timescale of the process has not been reached. Does this contraction proceed slowly, sustained by strong magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion, or is it driven by fast collapse with gravity dominating the entire process? One way to answer this question is to measure the age of prestellar cores through statistical methods based on observations or via reliable chemical chronometers, which should better reflect the physical conditions of the cores. Here we report APEX observations of ortho-H$_2$D$^+$ and para-D$_2$H$^+$ for six cores in the Ophiuchus complex and combine them with detailed three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamical simulations including chemistry, providing a range of ages for the observed cores up to 200 kyr. The outcome of our simulations and subsequent analysis provides a good match with the observational results in terms of physical (core masses and volume densities) and dynamical parameters such as the Mach number and the virial parameter. We show that models of fast collapse successfully reproduce the observed range of chemical abundance ratios as the timescales to reach the observed stages is comparable to the dynamical time of the cores (i.e. the free-fall time) and much shorter than the ambipolar diffusion time, measured from the electron fraction in the simulations. To confirm that this ratio can be used to distinguish between different star-formation scenarios a larger (statistically relevant) sample of star-forming cores should be explored.