2006/10/19 by Andrew Walsh, Andrew J. Walsh, Philip C. Myers +6 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Infrared #Low Mass #Physics #Star formation #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Virial theorem #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/510193
published as Astrophys.J.655:958-972,2007 · 35 pages, 13 figures
arxiv created 2006/10/19 · openalex publication_date 2007/01/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We observed the clustered star forming complex NGC 1333 with the BIMA and FCRAO telescopes in the transitions HCO + (1-0) and N 2 H + (1-0) over an 11' × 11' area with resolution ~10'' (0.015 pc). The N 2 H + emission follows very closely the submillimeter dust continuum emission, while HCO + emission appears more spatially extended and also traces outflows. We have identified 93 N 2 H + cores using the CLUMPFIND algorithm, and we derive N 2 H + core masses between 0.05 and 2.5 M ☉ , with uncertainties of a factor of a few, dominated by the adopted N 2 H + abundance. From a comparison with virial masses, we argue that most of these N 2 H + cores are likely to be bound, even at the lowest masses, suggesting that the cores do not trace transient structures, and implies the entire mass distribution consists of objects that can potentially form stars. We find that the mass distribution of N 2 H + cores resembles the field star IMF, which suggests that the IMF is locked in at the prestellar stage of evolution. We find that the N 2 H + cores associated with stars identified from Spitzer infrared images have a flat mass distribution. This might be because lower mass cores lose a larger fraction of their mass when forming a star. Even in this clustered environment, we find no evidence for ballistic motions of the cores relative to their lower density surroundings traced by isotopic CO emission, although this conclusion must remain tentative until the surroundings are observed at the same high resolution as the N 2 H + .