Related papers: Hunting pre-stellar cores with APEX: overview
We describe a systematic program aimed at identifying and characterizing candidate high-mass proto-stellar objects (HMPOs). Our candidate sample consists of 69 objects selected by criteria based on those established by Ramesh & Sridharan…
Sulfur-bearing molecules are commonly detected in dense cores within star-forming regions, but the total sulfur budget is significantly low, when compared to the interstellar medium (ISM) value. The properties of sulfur-bearing molecules…
Clouds of high infrared extinction are promising sites of massive star/cluster formation. A large number of cloud cores discovered in recent years allows investigation of possible evolutionary sequence among cores in early phases. We have…
Sun-like stars form from the contraction of cold and dense interstellar clouds. How the collapse proceeds and what are the main physical processes driving it, however, is still under debate and a final consensus on the timescale of the…
Observations carried out toward starless and pre-stellar cores have revealed that complex organic molecules are prevalent in these objects, but it is unclear what chemical processes are involved in their formation. Recently, it has been…
Infrared-dark clouds (IRDCs) are the precursors to massive stars and stellar clusters. G011.11-0.12 is a well-studied filamentary IRDC, though, to date, the absence of far-infrared data with sufficient spatial resolution has limited the…
Based on color-selected IRAS point sources, we have started to conduct a survey of 47 high-mass star-forming regions in the southern hemisphere in 870um dust continuum and molecular line emission in several frequency ranges between 290 GHz…
We present newly processed archival Herschel images of molecular cloud MCLD 123.5+24.9 in the Polaris Flare. This cloud contains five starless cores. Using the spectral synthesis code Cloudy, we explore uncertainties in the derivation of…
Recent observations indicate that organic molecules are prevalent towards starless and prestellar cores. Deuteration of these molecules has not been well-studied during the starless phase. Published observations of singly-deuterated…
Exploring the structure and dynamics of cold starless clouds is necessary to understand the different steps leading to the formation of protostars. Because clouds evolve slowly, many of them must be studied in detail to pick up different…
Context: Despite their profound effect on the universe, the formation of massive stars and stellar clusters remains elusive. In the past decade, compelling evidence has emerged that suggests Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) may be precursors to…
Complex organic molecules (COMs) in starless cores provide critical insights into the early stages of star formation and prebiotic chemistry. We present a chemical survey of 16 starless cores (including five prestellar cores) in the Orion A…
Large-scale surveys of the Perseus molecular cloud have provided many clues as to the processes occurring during star formation. Here, analysis of both column density maps and kinematic data (maps and pointed data) are discussed and…
We have mapped the Auriga/California molecular cloud with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE cameras and the Bolocam 1.1 mm camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) with the eventual goal of quantifying the star formation and cloud…
Using data from the SCUBA Legacy Catalogue (850 um) and Spitzer Space Telescope (3.6 - 70 um), we explore dense cores in the Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, Serpens, and Orion molecular clouds. We develop a new method to discriminate…
The sulfur content in dense molecular regions of the interstellar medium is highly depleted in comparison to diffuse clouds. The reason of this phenomenon is unclear, thus it is necessary to carry out observational studies of sulfur-bearing…
We review the properties of low mass dense molecular cloud cores, including starless, prestellar, and Class 0 protostellar cores, as derived from observations. In particular we discuss them in the context of the current debate surrounding…
Infrared-dark clouds (IRDCs) harbor the early phases of cluster and high-mass star formation and are comprised of cold (~20 K), dense (n > 10$^4$ cm$^{-3}$) gas. The spectral energy distribution (SED) of IRDCs is dominated by the…
We present a 1.1~mm census of dense cores in the Mon~R2 Giant Molecular Cloud with the AzTEC instrument on the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT). We detect 295 cores (209 starless, and 86 with protostars) in a two square degree shallow…
Determining the level of chemical complexity within dense starless and gravitationally bound prestellar cores is crucial for constructing chemical models, which subsequently constrain the initial chemical conditions of star formation. We…