Extinction of Taurus, Orion, Perseus and California Molecular Clouds Based on the LAMOST, 2MASS and Gaia surveys I: Three-dimensional Extinction and Structure

TL;DR

This study constructs detailed three-dimensional dust extinction maps of Taurus, Orion, Perseus, and California molecular clouds using LAMOST, Gaia, and 2MASS data, revealing their structures and new features like rings and a bow-like formation.

Contribution

It presents a novel method combining spectroscopic and photometric data to produce high-precision 3D extinction maps that distinguish overlapping clouds and uncover new structural features.

Findings

Successful separation of overlapping clouds in 3D maps

Discovery of a bow-like structure at 175-250pc

Identification of three low-extinction rings

Abstract

The three-dimensional extinction and structure are studied for the Taurus, Orion, Perseus and California molecular clouds based on the LAMOST spectroscopy. Stellar color excess is calculated with the intrinsic color index derived from the atmospheric parameters in the LAMOST DR8 catalog and the observed color index in the Gaia EDR3 and the 2MASS PSC. In combination with the distance from the Gaia EDR3 parallax, the three-dimensional dust extinction maps are retrieved in the color excesses $E_{\rm{G_{BP},G_{RP}}}$ and $E_{\rm{J,K_{S}}}$ with an uncertainty of $\sim$0.03mag and $\sim$0.07mag respectively. The extinction maps successfully separate the clouds that overlap in the sky area and manifest the structure of the individual cloud. Meanwhile, a bow-like structure is found with a distance range from 175pc to 250pc, half of which is a part of the Per-Tau Shell in similar coordinates and distance while the other half is not. Three low-extinction rings are additionally discovered and briefly discussed.