Research progress of filamentary structures in Molecular Clouds----Xinjiang Branch,Chinese Academy of Sciences

Recent observations suggest a scenario in which filamentary structures in the interstellar medium represent the first step towards clumps/cores and eventually star formation. The densest filaments would then fragment into prestellar cores owing to gravitational instability. We seek to understand the roles filamentary structures play in high-mass star formation.

In order to understand the roles filamentary structures play in high-mass star formation. Dr. Gang Wu from star formation and evolution group and his colleagues mapped the integral-shaped filament (ISF) located at the northern end of the Orion A molecular cloud in NH₃(1, 1) and NH₃(2, 2). The observations were made using the Nanshan radio telescope operated by the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The whole filamentary structure, about 1.2°×0.6°, is uniformly and fully sampled. They investigate the morphology, fragmentation, and temperature properties in this region.

The related work has recently been published in The Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A 616, A111 2018)

The link to the full paper: http://ads.bao.ac.cn/abs/2018A%26A...616A.111W

Fig. 1. Integrated intensity (zeroth moment) maps of NH3 (1, 1) (left) and (2, 2) (right) of the integral-shaped filament.