Identifying the bona fide VeLLOs in the Gould Belt's clouds

  • Kim, Mi-Ryang (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Lee, Chang-Won (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Kim, Gwan-Jeong (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Dunham, M. (Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas) ;
  • Allen, L. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) ;
  • Myers, Philip C. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) ;
  • Evans, N. (Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas)
  • Published : 2012.04.03

Abstract

We present results of searching for the Very Low Luminosity Objects (VeLLOs; internal luminosity Lint<0.1Lo) candidates in the Gould Belt's clouds using infrared observations from 3.6 to 70 micron by the Spitzer Space Telescope. More than 100 VeLLO candidates were selected through the criteria by Dunham et al. and our additional ones. The candidates in Northern sky were recently observed with high density tracers such as N2H+ (1-0) and HCN (1-0) using Korea VLBI Network (KVN) 21m telescope at Yonsei site to check their embeddedness in dense gas envelopes. A total of 25 out of 74 VeLLO candidates were detected in either N2H+ or HCN (1-0) line while 9 candidates were detected in both tracers. These are more likely bona fide VeLLOs which need to be studied further in future. In this study the bolometric luminosities for 40 VeLLOs (25 from this study and 15 from Dunham et al.) were estimated and found to be significantly smaller than those given by various theoretical model tracks with constant accretion rate in a BLT diagram, indicating the constant accretion process suggested by standard star formation models can not explain the faintness of the VeLLOs. In the talk we will discuss on some possible explanation of why the VeLLOs are faint.

Keywords