Rachel Friesen (University of Toronto) Dynamics in Star-forming Cores (DiSCo) with Argus on the GBT
Green Bank Observatory Green Bank Observatory
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 Published On Mar 13, 2024

Abstract: The internal velocity structure within dense cores plays a crucial role in providing the initial conditions for star formation in molecular clouds. The kinematic properties of dense gas at sub-core scales (~ 0.01 - 0.1 pc) has not been extensively characterized, however, due to limitations in the ability to map line emission across cores with sufficient spatial and spectral resolution. The Argus instrument on the GBT fills this gap for local star-forming regions, enabling sensitive, high spatial and spectral resolution mapping observations of dense gas tracers toward nearby clouds. I will discuss the ongoing Large Program Dynamics in Star-forming Cores (DiSCo), using Argus. DiSCo will survey all starless cores and Class 0 protostellar cores in the Perseus molecular complex down to ~ 0.01 pc scales with less than 0.05 km/s velocity resolution using the dense gas tracer N2H+, and investigate the origin and distribution of angular momenta of star-forming cores. With the full dataset, DiSCo will address a key open question in star formation: the origin and distribution of angular momenta of star-forming cores. Here, I will present the first results from DiSCo toward the B1 and NGC 1333 regions in Perseus, which suggest that a dense core's internal velocity structure has little correlation with other core-scale properties, indicating these gas motions may be originated externally from cloud-scale turbulence. These first datasets also reaffirm the excellent capability of GBT-Argus for studying dense core velocity structure and provide an empirical basis for future studies that address the angular momentum problem with a statistically broad sample.

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