CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF CORES IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS; THE ORION A, B AND λ ORIONIS CLOUDS

  • Yi, Hee-Weon (Kyung Hee University, School of Space Research) ;
  • Lee, Jeong-Eun (Kyung Hee University, School of Space Research) ;
  • Liu, Tie (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Kim, Kee-Tae (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute)
  • Published : 2019.04.10

Abstract

We observed 80 dense cores ($N(H_2)$ > $10^{22}cm^{-2}$) in the Orion molecular cloud complex which contains the Orion A (39 cores), B (26 cores), and ${\lambda}$ Orionis (15 cores) clouds. We investigate the behavior of the different molecular tracers and look for chemical variations of cores in the three clouds in order to systematically investigate the effects of stellar feedback. The most commonly detected molecular lines (with the detection rates higher than 50%) are $N_2H^+$, $HCO^+$, $H^{13}CO^+$, $C_2H$, HCN, and $H_2CO$. The detection rates of dense gas tracers, $N_2H^+$, $HCO^+$, $H^{13}CO^+$, and $C_2H$ show the lowest values in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud. We find differences in the D/H ratio of $H_2CO$ and the $N_2H^+/HCO^+$ abundance ratios among the three clouds. Eight starless cores in the Orion A and B clouds exhibit high deuterium fractionations, larger than 0.10, while in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud, no cores reveal the high ratio. These chemical properties could support that cores in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud are affected by the photo-dissociation and external heating from the nearby H II region. An unexpected trend was found in the $[N_2H^+]/[HCO^+]$ ratio with a higher median value in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud than in the Orion A/B clouds than; typically, the $[N_2H^+]/[HCO^+]$ ratio is lower in higher temperatures and lower column densities. This could be explained by a longer timescale in the prestellar stage in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud, resulting in more abundant nitrogen-bearing molecules. In addition to these chemical differences, the kinematical difference was also found among the three clouds; the blue excess, which is an infall signature found in optically thick line profiles, is 0 in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud while it is 0.11 and 0.16 in the Orion A and B clouds, respectively. This result could be another evidence of the negative feedback of active current star formation to the next generation of star formation.

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