Evolution of the Angular Momentum of Molecular Cloud Cores Formed from Filament Fragmentation

TL;DR

This study uses 3D simulations to explore how molecular cloud cores formed from filament fragmentation evolve in angular momentum, revealing their rotation characteristics, internal structure, and observational signatures.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation-based theory of core angular momentum evolution during filament fragmentation, aligning with observational data.

Findings

Most cores rotate perpendicular to filaments.

Core angular momentum remains stable after initial formation.

Angular momentum profiles converge to a self-similar solution.

Abstract

The angular momentum of molecular cloud cores plays an essential role in the star formation process. However, the time evolution of the angular momentum of molecular cloud cores is still unclear. In this paper, we perform three-dimensional simulations to investigate the time evolution of the angular momentum of molecular cloud cores formed through filament fragmentation. As a result, we find that most of the cores rotate perpendicular to the filament axis. The mean angular momentum of the cores changes by only around 30% during the initial stage of their formation process and then remains almost constant. In addition, we analyze the internal angular momentum structure of the cores. Although the cores gain angular momentum with various directions from the initial turbulent velocity fluctuations of their parent filaments, the angular momentum profile in each core converges to the self-similar solution. We also show that the degree of complexity of the angular momentum structure in a core slightly decreases with time. Moreover, we perform synthetic observations and show that the angular momentum profile measured from the synthetic mean velocity map is compatible with the observations when the filament inclination is taken into account. The present study suggests a theory of core formation from filament fragmentation where the angular momentum structures of the cores are determined by the velocity fluctuation along the filaments and both are compatible with the observations. This theory also provides new insights on the core properties that could be observationally tested.