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Toward the prestellar core L1544, the methanol (CH3OH) emission forms an asymmetric ring around the core center, where CH3OH is mostly in solid form, with a clear peak at 4000 au to the northeast of the dust continuum peak. As part of the NOEMA Large Project SOLIS (Seeds of Life in Space), the CH3OH peak has been spatially resolved to study its kinematics and physical structure and to investigate the cause behind the local enhancement. We find that methanol emission is distributed in a ridge parallel to the main axis of the dense core. The centroid velocity increases by about 0.2 km s−1 and the velocity dispersion increases from subsonic to transonic toward the central zone of the core, where the velocity field also shows complex structure. This could be an indication of gentle accretion of material onto the core or the interaction of two filaments, producing a slow shock. We measure the rotational temperature and show that methanol is in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) only close to the dust peak, where it is significantly depleted. The CH3OH column density, Ntot(CH3OH), profile has been derived with non-LTE radiative transfer modeling and compared with chemical models of a static core. The measured Ntot(CH3OH) profile is consistent with model predictions, but the total column densities are one order of magnitude lower than those predicted by models, suggesting that the efficiency of reactive desorption or atomic hydrogen tunneling adopted in the model may be overestimated; or that an evolutionary model is needed to better reproduce methanol abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent observations of global velocity gradients across and along molecular filaments have been interpreted as signs of gas accreting onto and along these filaments, potentially feeding star-forming cores and protoclusters. The behavior of velocity gradients in filaments, however, has not been studied in detail, particularly on small scales (<0.1 pc). In this paper, we present MUFASA, an efficient, robust, and automatic method to fit ammonia lines with multiple velocity components, generalizable to other molecular species. We also present CRISPy, a Python package to identify filament spines in 3D images (e.g., position–position–velocity cubes), along with a complementary technique to sort fitted velocity components into velocity-coherent filaments. In NGC 1333, we find a wealth of velocity gradient structures on a beam-resolved scale of ∼0.05 pc. Interestingly, these local velocity gradients are not randomly oriented with respect to filament spines and their perpendicular, i.e., radial, component decreases in magnitude toward the spine for many filaments. Together with remarkably constant velocity gradients on larger scales along many filaments, these results suggest a scenario in which gas falling onto filaments is progressively damped and redirected to flow along these filaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the observation and analysis of newly discovered coherent structures in the L1688 region of Ophiuchus and the B18 region of Taurus. Using data from the Green Bank Ammonia Survey, we identify regions of high density and near-constant, almost-thermal velocity dispersion. We reveal 18 coherent structures are revealed, 12 in L1688 and 6 in B18, each of which shows a sharp “transition to coherence” in velocity dispersion around its periphery. The identification of these structures provides a chance to statistically study the coherent structures in molecular clouds. The identified coherent structures have a typical radius of 0.04 pc and a typical mass of 0.4 M☉, generally smaller than previously known coherent cores identified by Goodman et al., Caselli et al., and Pineda et al. We call these structures “droplets.” We find that, unlike previously known coherent cores, these structures are not virially bound by self-gravity and are instead predominantly confined by ambient pressure. The droplets have density profiles shallower than a critical Bonnor–Ebert sphere, and they have a velocity (VLSR) distribution consistent with the dense gas motions traced by NH3 emission. These results point to a potential formation mechanism through pressure compression and turbulent processes in the dense gas. We present a comparison with a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a star-forming region, and we speculate on the relationship of droplets with larger, gravitationally bound coherent cores, as well as on the role that droplets and other coherent structures play in the star formation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform a virial analysis of starless dense cores in three nearby star-forming regions: L1688 in Ophiuchus, NGC 1333 in Perseus, and B18 in Taurus. Our analysis takes advantage of comprehensive kinematic information for the dense gas in all of these regions made publicly available through the Green Bank Ammonia Survey Data Release 1, which is used to estimate internal support against collapse. We combine this information with ancillary data used to estimate other important properties of the cores, including continuum data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Gould Belt Survey for core identification, core masses, and core sizes. Additionally, we used Planck- and Herschel-based column density maps for external cloud weight pressure and Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory 13CO observations for external turbulent pressure. Our self-consistent analysis suggests that many dense cores in all three star-forming regions are not bound by gravity alone, but rather require additional pressure confinement to remain bound. Unlike a recent, similar study in Orion A, we find that turbulent pressure represents a significant portion of the external pressure budget. Our broad conclusion emphasizing the importance of pressure confinement in dense core evolution, however, agrees with earlier work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use Green Bank Ammonia Survey observations of NH3 (1, 1) and (2, 2) emission with 32″ FWHM resolution from a ∼10 pc2 portion of the Cepheus-L1251 molecular cloud to identify hierarchical dense gas structures. Our dendrogram analysis of the NH3 data results in 22 top-level structures, which reside within 13 lower-level parent structures. The structures are compact and are spatially correlated with the highest H2 column density portions of the cloud. We also compare the ammonia data to a catalog of dense cores identified by higher-resolution (18.″2 FWHM) Herschel Space Observatory observations of dust continuum emission from Cepheus-L1251. Maps of kinetic gas temperature, velocity dispersion, and NH3 column density, derived from detailed modeling of the NH3 data, are used to investigate the stability and chemistry of the ammonia-identified and Herschel-identified structures. We show that the dust and dense gas in the structures have similar temperatures, with median Tdust and TK measurements of 11.7 ± 1.1 K and 10.3 ± 2.0 K, respectively. Based on a virial analysis, we find that the ammonia-identified structures are gravitationally dominated, yet may be in or near a state of virial equilibrium. Meanwhile, the majority of the Herschel-identified dense cores appear to be not bound by their own gravity and instead confined by external pressure. CCS (20 − 10) and HC5N emission from the region reveal broader line widths and centroid velocity offsets when compared to the NH3 (1, 1) emission in some cases, likely due to these carbon-based molecules tracing the turbulent outer layers of the dense cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data on gas temperature and velocity dispersion from the Green Bank Ammonia Survey and core masses and sizes from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Gould Belt Survey to estimate the virial states of dense cores within the Orion A molecular cloud. Surprisingly, we find that almost none of the dense cores are sufficiently massive to be bound when considering only the balance between self-gravity and the thermal and non-thermal motions present in the dense gas. Including the additional pressure binding imposed by the weight of the ambient molecular cloud material and additional smaller pressure terms, however, suggests that most of the dense cores are pressure-confined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an overview of the first data release (DR1) and first-look science from the Green Bank Ammonia Survey (GAS). GAS is a Large Program at the Green Bank Telescope to map all Gould Belt star-forming regions with mag visible from the northern hemisphere in emission from NH3 and other key molecular tracers. This first release includes the data for four regions in the Gould Belt clouds: B18 in Taurus, NGC 1333 in Perseus, L1688 in Ophiuchus, and Orion A North in Orion. We compare the NH3 emission to dust continuum emission from Herschel and find that the two tracers correspond closely. We find that NH3 is present in over 60% of the lines of sight with mag in three of the four DR1 regions, in agreement with expectations from previous observations. The sole exception is B18, where NH3 is detected toward ∼40% of the lines of sight with mag. Moreover, we find that the NH3 emission is generally extended beyond the typical 0.1 pc length scales of dense cores. We produce maps of the gas kinematics, temperature, and NH3 column densities through forward modeling of the hyperfine structure of the NH3 (1, 1) and (2, 2) lines. We show that the NH3 velocity dispersion, , and gas kinetic temperature, TK, vary systematically between the regions included in this release, with an increase in both the mean value and the spread of and TK with increasing star formation activity. The data presented in this paper are publicly available (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/GAS_DR1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]