Chemical Differentiation of CS and N₂H⁺ in Starless Dense Cores

CS molecule is known to be adsorbed onto dust in cold dense cores, causing its significant depletion in the center region of cores. This study is aimed to investigate the depletion of CS molecule with optically thin $C^{34}S$ molecular line observations, including significance of its differentiation depending on the evolutionary status of the dense cores. We mapped five evolved starless cores, L1544, L1552, L1689B, L694-2 and L1197 using two molecular lines, $C^{34}S$ (J=2-1) and $N_2H^+$ (J=1-0) with NRO 45 m telescope. The $H^2$ column density and temperature structures of each targets were obtained by SED fitting for Herschel continuum images and the internal number density profiles by model fitting. All of the integrated intensity maps of $C^{34}S$ show depletion holes and 'semi-ring-like' distribution, indicating that the depletion of CS is clear and general. The radial profiles of CS abundance also show significant decrease towards the core center, while $N_2H^+$ abundance is almost constant or enhanced. We find that the more evolved cores with higher $H^2$ density tend to have a stronger depletion of CS. Our data strongly support claims that CS molecule generally depletes out in the central regions of starless dense cores and such chemical differentiation is closely related to their evolution.