Galactic Cold Cores VII: Filament Formation and Evolution - Methods & Observational Constraints

Abstract

The association of filaments with protostellar objects has made these structures a priority target in star formation studies. The datasets of the Herschel Galactic Cold Cores Key Programme allow for a statistical study of filaments with a wide range of intrinsic and environmental characteristics. Characterisation of this sample can be used to identify key physical parameters and quantify the role of environment in the formation of supercritical filaments. Filaments were extracted from fields at D<500pc with the getfilaments algorithm and characterised according to their column density profiles and intrinsic properties. Each profile was fitted with a beam-convolved Plummer-like function and quantified based on the relative contributions from the filament 'core', represented by a Gaussian, and 'wing' component, dominated by the power-law of the Plummer-like function. These parameters were examined for populations associated with different background levels. We find that filaments increase their core (Mcore) and wing (Mwing) contributions while increasing their total linear mass density (Mtot). Both components appear to be linked to the local environment, with filaments in higher backgrounds having systematically more massive Mcore and Mwing. This dependence on the environment supports an accretion-based model for filament evolution in the local neighbourhood (D<500pc). Structures located in the highest backgrounds develop the highest central Av, Mcore, and Mwing as Mtot increases with time, favoured by the local availability of material and the enhanced gravitational potential. Our results indicate that filaments acquiring a significantly massive central region with Mcore>Mcrit/2 may become supercritical and form stars. This translates into a need for filaments to become at least moderately self-gravitating in order to undergo localised star formation or become star-forming filaments.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (26)

• The Herschel-SPIRE instrument and its in-flight performance
• Clouds, filaments and protostars: the Herschel Hi-GAL Milky Way
• Characterizing interstellar filaments with Herschel in IC5146
• Herschel view of the Taurus B211/3 filament and striations: Evidence of filamentary growth?
• Cores, filaments, and bundles: hierarchical core formation in the L1495/B213 Taurus region
• The Turbulent Shock Origin of Proto--Stellar Cores
• Scanamorphos: a map-making software for Herschel and similar scanning bolometer arrays
• Filamentary structures and compact objects in the Aquila and Polaris clouds observed by Herschel
• From Filamentary Networks to Dense Cores in Molecular Clouds: Toward a New Paradigm for Star Formation
• The spine of the swan: A Herschel study of the DR21 ridge and filaments in Cygnus X
• Planck Early Results: The Galactic Cold Core Population revealed by the first all-sky survey
• Herschel-SPIRE observations of the Polaris flare : structure of the diffuse interstellar medium at the sub-parsec scale
• On the nature of star-forming filaments: I. Filament morphologies
• An empirical model for protostellar collapse
• Galactic cold cores III. General cloud properties
• Physical properties of interstellar filaments
• Changes Of Dust Opacity With Density in the Orion A Molecular Cloud
• Planck Early Results: The submillimetre properties of a sample of Galactic cold clumps
• A multi-scale filament extraction method: getfilaments
• SCUBA and Spitzer observations of the Taurus molecular cloud - pulling the bull's tail
• Profiling filaments: comparing near-infrared extinction and submillimetre data in TMC-1
• Galactic cold cores VI. Dust opacity spectral index
• Galactic cold cores V. Dust opacity
• Profiles of interstellar cloud filaments. Observational effects in synthetic sub-millimetre observations
• Can we trace very cold dust from its emission alone ?
• Resolving the Vela C ridge with P-ArTeMiS and Herschel

Cited by in corpus (9)

• The TOP-SCOPE survey of Planck Galactic Cold Clumps: Survey overview and results of an exemplar source, PGCC G26.53+0.17
• SCOPE: SCUBA-2 Continuum Observations of Pre-protostellar Evolution - Survey Description and Compact Source Catalogue
• KFPA Examinations of Young STellar Object Natal Environments (KEYSTONE): Hierarchical Ammonia Structures in Galactic Giant Molecular Clouds
• Dust spectrum and polarisation at 850 um in the massive IRDC G035.39-00.33
• Herschel and SCUBA-2 observations of dust emission in a sample of Planck cold clumps
• The role of the magnetic field in the fragmentation process: the case of G14.225-0.506
• Galactic cold cores IX. Column density structures and radiative transfer modelling
• Time Evolution of 3D Disk Formation with Misaligned Magnetic Field and Rotation Axes
• Sequential Star Formation in the filamentary structures of Planck Galactic cold clump G181.84+0.31