Related papers: CB17: Inferring the dynamical history of a prestel…

We present high angular resolution SMA and Spitzer observations toward the Bok globule CB17. SMA 1.3mm dust continuum images reveal within CB17 two sources with an angular separation of about 21" (about 5250 AU at a distance of 250 pc). The…

Context: The initial conditions for the gravitational collapse of molecular cloud cores and the subsequent birth of stars are still not well constrained. The characteristic cold temperatures (about 10 K) in such regions require observations…

Prestellar cores exhibit a strong chemical differentiation, which is mainly caused by the freeze-out of molecules onto the grain surfaces. Understanding this chemical structure is important, because molecular lines are often used as probes…

In this paper, the results obtained from the polarimetric study of a Bok globule CB17 in both optical and sub-millimeter wavelength are presented. The optical polarimetric observations in R-band ($\lambda$ = 630 nm, $\Delta \lambda$ = 120…

A solar-type system starts from an initial molecular core that acquires organic complexity as it evolves. The so-called prestellar cores that can be studied are rare, which has hampered our understanding of how organic chemistry sets in and…

The study of prestellar cores is critical as they set the initial conditions in star formation and determine the final mass of the stellar object. To date, several hypotheses are describing their gravitational collapse. We perform detailed…

We revisit the interpretation of blue-excess molecular lines from dense collapsing cores, considering recent numerical results that suggest prestellar core collapse occurs from the outside-in, and not inside-out. We thus create synthetic…

Observations have been carried out with SCUBA at the JCMT of 52 molecular cloud cores that do not contain any sign of protostellar activity. These are all therefore candidate prestellar cores, which are believed to represent the stage of…

Chemical diversity of low-mass protostellar sources has so far been recognized, and environmental effects are invoked as its origin. In this context, observations of isolated protostellar sources without influences of nearby objects are of…

We present a multiline CS survey towards the brightest bow-shock B1 in the prototypical chemically active protostellar outflow L1157. We made use of (sub-)mm data obtained in the framework of the Chemical HErschel Surveys of Star forming…

Dense cloud cores present chemical differentiation due to the different distribution of C-bearing and N-bearing molecules, the latter being less affected by freeze-out onto dust grains. In this letter we show that two C-bearing molecules,…

New molecular line observations of the Bok globule Barnard 68 in HCO+ irrefutably confirm the complex pattern of red and blue asymmetric line profiles seen across the face of the cloud in previous observations of CS. The new observations…

We aim to reveal the physical properties and chemical composition of the cores in the California molecular cloud (CMC), so as to better understand the initial conditions of star formation. We made a high-resolution column density map…

We present a detailed study of the Orion B clouds (d~400 pc), imaged with the PACS/SPIRE cameras at 70-500 $\mu$m by the Herschel Gould Belt survey (HGBS). We release new high-res. maps of column density and dust temperature. In the…

The Bok globule CB230 (L1177) contains an active, low-mass star-forming core which is associated with a double NIR reflection nebula, a collimated bipolar molecular outflow, and strong mm continuum emission. The morphology of the NIR nebula…

Measurement of internal structures in the prestellar core is essential for understanding the initial conditions prior to star formation. In this work,, we study the ammonia lines (NH3 ) (J,K=1,1 and 2,2) in the central region of the…

We present infrared and millimeter observations of Barnard 335, the prototypical isolated Bok globule with an embedded protostar. Using Spitzer data we measure the source luminosity accurately; we also constrain the density profile of the…

We present the results of chemical modeling of complex organic molecules (COMs) under conditions typical for prestellar cores. We utilize an advanced gas-grain astrochemical model with updated gas-phase chemistry, with a multilayer approach…

Star formation in the central molecular zone (CMZ) is suppressed with respect to that of the Galactic disk, and this is likely related to its high turbulent environment. This turbulence impedes the potential detection of prestellar cores.…

We propose an evolutionary path for prestellar cores on the radius-mass diagram, which is analogous to stellar evolutionary paths on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram. Using James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) observations of L1688 in the…