The JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey

Abstract

Stars form in the densest, coldest, most quiescent regions of molecular clouds. Molecules provide the only probes which can reveal the dynamics, physics, chemistry and evolution of these regions, but our understanding of the molecular inventory of sources and how this is related to their physical state and evolution is rudimentary and incomplete. The Spectral Legacy Survey (SLS) is one of seven surveys recently approved by the JCMT Board. Starting in 2007, the SLS will produce a spectral imaging survey of the content and distribution of all the molecules detected in the 345 GHz atmospheric window (between 332 GHz and 373 GHz) towards a sample of 5 sources. Our intended targets are: a low mass core (NGC1333 IRAS4), 3 high mass cores spanning a range of star forming environments and evolutionary states (W49, AFGL2591, and IRAS20126), and a PDR (the Orion Bar). The SLS will use the unique spectral imaging capabilities of HARP-B/ACSIS to study the molecular inventory and the physical structure of these objects, which span different evolutionary stages and physical environments, to probe their evolution during the star formation process. As its name suggests, the SLS will provide a lasting data legacy from the JCMT that is intended to benefit the entire astronomical community. As such, the entire data set (including calibrated spectral datacubes, maps of molecular emission, line identifications, and calculations of the gas temperature and column density) will be publicly available.

34 pages, 1 figure - Accepted to PASP

References in corpus (28)

• An atomic and molecular database for analysis of submillimetre line observations
• A Hipparcos census of the nearby OB associations
• Unveiling the Circumstellar Envelope and Disk: A Sub-Arcsecond Survey of Circumstellar Structures
• Massive star formation in 100,000 years from turbulent and pressurized molecular clouds
• Molecular Inventories and Chemical Evolution of Low-mass Protostellar Envelopes
• Complex molecules in the hot core of the low mass protostar NGC1333-IRAS4A
• Abundant H2D+ in the pre-stellar core L1544
• Infall, Outflow, Rotation, and Turbulent Motions of Dense Gas within NGC 1333 IRAS 4
• Resetting chemical clocks of hot cores based on S-bearing molecules
• The Physical and Chemical Structure of Hot Molecular Cores
• Chemistry as a probe of the structures and evolution of massive star forming regions
• The H2CO abundance in the inner warm regions of low mass protostellar envelopes
• The Impact of the Massive Young Star GL 2591 on its Circumstellar Material: Temperature, Density and Velocity Structure
• Sulphur chemistry in the envelopes of massive young stars
• The far-IR spectrum of Sagittarius B2 region: Extended molecular absorption, photodissociation and photoionization
• Detection of interstellar H_2D^+ emission
• Water in the envelopes and disks around young high-mass stars
• H2CO and CH3OH abundances in the envelopes around low-mass protostars
• Physical-chemical modeling of the low-mass protostar IRAS 16293-2422
• Sulfur chemistry and isotopic ratios in the starburst galaxy NGC 253
• A spectral survey of the Star Forming Core of the Orion Nebula from 455 -- 507 GHz
• HDO abundance in the envelope of the solar-type protostar IRAS16293-2422
• On the origin of H2CO abundance enhancements in low-mass protostars
• Widespread HCO emission in the M82's nuclear starburst
• APEX 1 mm line survey of the Orion Bar
• Massive Star Formation in the W49 Giant Molecular Cloud: Implications for the Formation of Massive Star Clusters
• Direct Detection of a (Proto)Binary-Disk System in IRAS 20126+4104
• Water Absorption From Line-of-Sight Clouds Toward W49A

Cited by in corpus (14)

• HARP/ACSIS: A submillimetre spectral imaging system on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
• Chemical stratification in the Orion Bar: JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey observations
• An Unbiased Survey of 500 Nearby Stars for Debris Disks: A JCMT Legacy Program
• Automated reduction of submillimetre single-dish heterodyne data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope using ORAC-DR
• Dense molecular gas toward W49A: A template for extragalactic starbursts?
• Extended warm and dense gas towards W49A: starburst conditions in our Galaxy?
• Physical and chemical differentiation of the luminous star-forming region W49A - Results from the JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey
• The evolutionary status of dense cores in the NGC 1333 IRAS 4 region
• The chemical structure of the Class 0 protostellar envelope NGC 1333 IRAS 4A
• The HIFI spectral survey of AFGL 2591 (CHESS). II. Summary of the survey
• The HIFI spectral survey of AFGL2591 (CHESS). I. Highly excited linear rotor molecules in the high-mass protostellar envelope
• The JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey: physical structure of the molecular envelope of the high-mass protostar AFGL2591
• The HIFI spectral survey of AFGL 2591 (CHESS). III. Chemical structure of the protostellar envelope
• Using deuterated H3+ and other molecular species to understand the formation of stars and planets