• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.133-137
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• 2015

The Galactic center uniquely provides opportunities to resolve how star clusters form in neutral gas overdensities engulfed in a large-scale accretion flow. We have performed sensitive Green Bank 100m Telescope (GBT), Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), and Submillimeter Array (SMA) mapping observations of molecular gas and thermal dust emission surrounding the Galaxy's supermassive black hole (SMBH) Sgr $A^{\ast}$. We resolved several molecular gas streams orbiting the center on ${\gtrsim}10$ pc scales. Some of these gas streams appear connected to the well-known 2-4 pc scale molecular circumnuclear disk (CND). The CND may be the tidally trapped inner part of the large-scale accretion flow, which incorporates inflow via exterior gas filaments/arms, and ultimately feeds gas toward Sgr $A^{\ast}$. Our high resolution GBT+JVLA $NH_3$ images and SMA+JCMT 0.86 mm dust continuum image consistently reveal abundant dense molecular clumps in this region. These gas clumps are characterized by ${\gtrsim}100$ times higher virial masses than the derived molecular gas masses based on 0.86 mm dust continuum emission. In addition, Class I $CH_3OH$ masers and some $H_2O$ masers are observed to be well associated with the dense clumps. We propose that the resolved gas clumps may be pressurized gas reservoirs for feeding the formation of 1-10 solar-mass stars. These sources may be the most promising candidates for ALMA to probe the process of high-mass star-formation in the Galactic center.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.81-102
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• 1994

We have decomposed the 11-cm radio continuum emission of the W51 complex into thermal and non-thermal components. The distribution of the thermal emission has been determined by analyzing HI, CO, and IRAS $60-{\mu}m$ data. We have found a good correlation between the 11-cm thermal continuum and the 60- 11m emissions, which is used to obtain the thermal and non-thermal 11-cm continuum maps of the W51 complex. Most of the thermal continuum is emanating from the compact H II regions and their low-density ionized envelopes in W51A and W51B. All the H II regions, except G49.1-0.4 in W51B, have associated molecular clumps. The thermal radio continuum fluxes of the compact H II regions are proportional to the CO fluxes of molecular clumps. This is consistent with the previous results that the total mass of stars in an H II region is proportional to the mass of the associated molecular clump. According to our result, there are three non-thermal continuum sources in W51: G49.4-0.4 in W51A, a weak source close to G49.2-0.3 in W51B, and the shell source W51C. The non-thermal flux of G49.5-0.4 at 11-cm is $\~28 Jy$, which is $\~25\%$ of its total 11-cm flux. The radio continuum spectrum between 0.15 and 300 GHz also suggests an excess emission over thermal free-free emission. We show that the excess emission can be described as a non-thermal emission with a spectral index ${\alpha}{\simeq}-1.0 (S_v{\propto}V^a)$ attenuated by thermal free-free absorptions at low-frequencies. The non-thermal source close to G49.2-0.3 is weak $(\~9 Jy)$. The nature of the source is not known and the reality of the non-thermal emission needs to be confirmed. The non~thermal shell source W51C has a 11-cm flux of $\~130Jy$ and a spectral index ${\alpha}{\simeq}-0.26$.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.79-82
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• 2015

The physical and chemical properties of prestellar cores, especially massive ones, are still far from being well understood due to the lack of a large sample. The low dust temperature (< 14 K) of Planck cold clumps makes them promising candidates for prestellar objects or for sources at the very initial stages of protostellar collapse. We have been conducting a series of observations toward Planck cold clumps (PCCs) with ground-based radio telescopes. In general, when compared with other star forming samples (e.g. infrared dark clouds), PCCs are more quiescent, suggesting that most of them may be in the earliest phase of star formation. However, some PCCs are associated with protostars and molecular outflows, indicating that not all PCCs are in a prestellar phase. We have identified hundreds of starless dense clumps from a mapping survey with the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7-m telescope. Follow-up observations suggest that these dense clumps are ideal targets to search for prestellar objects.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.45.1-45.1
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• 2018

Formation of filaments and subsequent dense cores in ISM is one of the essential questions to address in star formation. To investigate this scenario in detail, we recently started a molecular line survey namely 'Filaments, the Universal Nursery of Stars (FUNS)' toward nearby filamentary clouds in Gould Belt using TRAO 14m single dish telescope equipped with a 16 multi-beam array. In the present work, we report the first look results of kinematics of a low mass star forming region L1478 of California molecular cloud. This region is found to be consisting of long filaments with a hub-filament structure. We performed On-The-Fly mapping observations covering ~1.1 square degree area of this region using C18O(1-0) as a low density tracer and 0.13 square degree area using N2H+(1-0) as a high density tracer, respectively. CS (2-1) and SO (32-21) were also used simultaneously to map ~290 square arcminute area of this region. We identified 10 filaments applying Dendrogram technique to C18O data-cube and 13 dense cores using FellWalker and N2H+ data set. Basic physical properties of filaments such as mass, length, width, velocity field, and velocity dispersion are derived. It is found that filaments in L~1478 are velocity coherent and supercritical. Especially the filaments which are highly supercritical are found to have dense cores detected in N2H+. Non-thermal velocity dispersions derived from C18O and N2H+ suggest that most of the dense cores are subsonic or transonic while the surrounding filaments are transonic or supersonic. We concluded that filaments in L~1478 are gravitationally unstable which might collapse to form dense cores and stars. We also suggest that formation mechanism can be different in individual filament depending on its morphology and environment.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.171-172
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• 1996

We present the results of an rocket-borne observation of far-infrared [CII] line at 157.7 ${\mu}m$ from the diffuse inter-stellar medium in the Ursa Major. We also introduce a part of results on the [CII] emission recently obtained by the IRTS, a liquid-helium cooled 15cm telescope onboard the Space Flyer Unit. From the rocket-borne observation we obtained the cooling rate of the diffuse HI gas due to the [CII] line emission, which is $1.3{\pm}0.2 {\times} 10^{-26}$ $ergss^{-1} H^{-1}_{atom}$. We also observed appreciable [CII] emission from the molecular clouds, with average CII/CO intensity ratio of 420. The IRTS observation provided the [CII] line emission distribution over large area of the sky along great circles crossing the Galactic plane at I = $50^{\circ}$ and I = $230^{\circ}$. We found two components in their intensity distributions, one concentrates on the Galactic plane and the another extends over at least $20^{\circ}$ in Galactic latitude. We ascribe one component to the emission from the Galactic disk, and the another one to the emission from the local interstellar gas. The [CII] cooling rate of the latter component is $5.6 {\pm} 2.2 {\times}10$.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.125-138
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• 2005

S152 is a small bright emission nebula located in the Perseus arm. Its optical diameter corresponds to 1.5 pc for an adopted distance 3.5 kpc. However, S152 is a part of a giant molecular cloud complex, which consists of several dense cores, containing active star-forming sites, and well aligned arm-like features. We analyzed the FCRAO $^{12}CO(J=\;1{\to}0)$ Outer Galaxy Survey data in this region to study the kinematical structure of this region, which resembles a big "scorpion". We found that there exist three different velocity components, about -54.5, -50.4, -48.8 km $s^{-1}$, depending on the position of the "scorpion". There also exist velocity gradients of 0.21 km $s^{-1}pc^{-1}$ and 0.16 km $s^{-1}pc^{-1}$ through the whole extent of the "scorpion". Interestingly, these two velocity gradients show an opposite direction with each other. It is likely that the velocity structure of this region may result from the mergence of different gas clouds, and the interaction with the SNR 109.1-1.0 occurred later, mostly at the region around the "head of the scorpion" only.