An Analysis of C18O Envelopes of Early-Stage Protostars in the Perseus Molecular Cloud
Abstract
We present a comprehensive analysis of envelopes surrounding protostellar systems in the Perseus molecular cloud using data from the MASSES survey. The goal of this study is to characterize the shape, size, and orientation of each envelope, calculate the velocity gradient, linewidths, and fluxes, and determine evolutionary trends. We focus our attention to the C18O(2-1) spectral line, and compare the envelopes to the bipolar outflows, best imaged in the 12CO line. We find that the angular difference between the elongation angle of the C18O envelope and the outflow position angle generally becomes increasingly perpendicular with increasing Tbol, a tracer of protostellar age. We also estimate the masses of the C18O envelopes using the integrated flux and find a discrepancy of up to two orders of magnitude between these mass values and dust mass estimates from previously published MASSES papers. We compare the C18O envelopes with larger gaseous structures in other molecular clouds and show that velocity gradient increases with both decreasing mass (|G| ~ M-0.44) and decreasing radius (|G| ~ R-0.85).
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23527207H