Synthetic Observations of the Evolution of Starless Cores in a Molecular Cloud Simulation: Comparisons with JCMT Data and Predictions for ALMA

Abstract

Interpreting the nature of starless cores has been a prominent goal in star formation for many years. In order to characterise the evolutionary stages of these objects, we perform synthetic observations of a numerical simulation of a turbulent molecular cloud. We find that nearly all cores that we detect are associated with filaments and eventually form protostars. We conclude that observed starless cores which appear Jeans unstable are only marginally larger than their respective Jeans masses (within a factor of 3). We note single dish observations such as those performed with the JCMT appear to miss significant core structure on small scales due to beam averaging. Finally, we predict that interferometric observations with ALMA Cycle 1 will resolve the important small scale structure, which has so far been missed by mm-wavelength observations.

15 pages, 9 Figures, Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (20)

• Zooming in on Individual Star Formation: Low- and High-mass Stars
• An ALMA Search for Substructure, Fragmentation, and Hidden Protostars in Starless Cores in Chamaeleon I
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: A First Look at Southern Orion A with SCUBA-2
• From the CMF to the IMF: Beyond the Core-Collapse Model
• The Origin of the Stellar Mass Distribution and Multiplicity
• ALMA Observations of Starless Core Substructure in Ophiuchus
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: A First Look at Dense Cores in Orion B
• Turbulence, Coherence and Collapse: Three Phases for Core Evolution
• Synthetic observations of star formation and the interstellar medium
• KFPA Examinations of Young STellar Object Natal Environments (KEYSTONE): Hierarchical Ammonia Structures in Galactic Giant Molecular Clouds
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: A First Look at IC 5146
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Evidence for radiative heating in Serpens MWC 297 and its influence on local star formation
• Large-scale numerical simulations of star formation put to the test: Comparing synthetic images and actual observations for statistical samples of protostars
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Evidence for radiative heating and contamination in the W40 complex
• The highly variable time evolution of star-forming cores identified with dendrograms
• Assessing the Impact of Astrochemistry on Molecular Cloud Turbulence Statistics
• Effects of stellar feedback on cores in STARFORGE
• Predictions for Observing Protostellar Outflows with ALMA
• The factors that influence protostellar multiplicity I: Gas temperature, density, and mass in Perseus with Nobeyama
• The factors that influence protostellar multiplicity II. Gas temperature and mass in Perseus with APEX