A wide-field CO survey towards the California Molecular Filament

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive CO survey of the California Molecular Cloud, revealing a large filament, its kinematics, core structures, and signs of active star formation, providing insights into filament formation and early star formation processes.

Contribution

The study provides the first detailed large-scale CO mapping of the CMC, identifying filament substructures, core populations, and kinematic patterns related to star formation.

Findings

A 72 pc filament with velocity oscillations and fragmentation patterns.

Approximately 225 C$^{18}$O cores, with 181 starless cores identified.

Active early-stage star formation evidenced by outflows and core dynamics.

Abstract

We present the survey of $^{12}$CO/$^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O (J=1-0) toward the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) within the region of 161.75$^{\circ} \leqslant l \leqslant$ 167.75$^{\circ}$,-9.5$^{\circ} \leqslant b \leqslant $-7.5$^{\circ}$, using the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7 m millimeter telescope. Adopting a distance of 470 pc, the mass of the observed molecular cloud estimated from $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O is about 2.59$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, 0.85$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, and 0.09$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, respectively. A large-scale continuous filament extending about 72 pc is revealed from the $^{13}$CO images. A systematic velocity gradient perpendicular to the major axis appears and is measured to be $\sim$ 0.82 km s$^{-1}$ pc$^{-1}$. The kinematics along the filament shows an oscillation pattern with a fragmentation wavelength of $\sim$ 2.3 pc and velocity amplitude of $\sim$ 0.92 km s$^{-1}$, which may be related with core-forming flows. Furthermore, assuming an inclination angle to the plane of the sky of 45$^{\circ}$, the estimated average accretion rate is $\sim$ 101 M$_\odot$ Myr$^{-1}$ for the cluster LkH$\alpha$ 101 and $\sim$ 21 M$_\odot$ Myr$^{-1}$ for the other regions. In the C$^{18}$O observations, the large-scale filament could be resolved into multiple substructures and their dynamics are consistent with the scenario of filament formation from converging flows. Approximately 225 C$^{18}$O cores are extracted, of which 181 are starless cores. Roughly 37$\%$ (67/181) of the starless cores have $\alpha_{\text{vir}}$ less than 1. Twenty outflow candidates are identified along the filament. Our results indicate active early-phase star formation along the large-scale filament in the CMC region.