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Context. The detections of narrow channels of accretion toward protostellar disks, known as streamers, have increased in number in the last few years. However, it is unclear whether streamers are a common feature around protostars that were previously missed, or if they are a rare phenomenon. Aims. Our goals are to obtain the incidence of streamers toward a region of clustered star formation and to trace the origins of their gas to determine whether they originate within the filamentary structure of molecular clouds or from beyond. Methods. We used combined observations of the nearby NGC 1333 star-forming region, carried out with the NOEMA interferometer and the IRAM 30m single dish. Our observations cover the area between the systems IRAS 4 and SVS 13. We traced the chemically fresh gas within NGC 1333 with HC3N molecular gas emission and the structure of the fibers in this region with N2H+ emission. We fit multiple velocity components in both maps and used clustering algorithms to recover velocity-coherent structures. Results. We find streamer candidates toward 7 out of 16 young stellar objects within our field of view. This represents an incidence of approximately 40% of young stellar objects with streamer candidates in a clustered star-forming region. The incidence increases to about 60% when we only considered embedded protostars. All streamers are found in HC3N emission. Conclusions. Given the different velocities between HC3N and N2H+ emission, and because by construction, N2H+ traces the fiber structure, we suggest that the gas that forms the streamers comes from outside the fibers. This implies that streamers can connect cloud material that falls onto the filaments with protostellar disk scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internal velocity structure within dense gaseous cores plays a crucial role in providing the initial conditions for star formation in molecular clouds. However, the kinematic properties of dense gas at core scales (∼0.01−0.1 pc) has not been extensively characterized because of instrument limitations until the unique capabilities of GBT- Argus became available. The ongoing GBT- Argus Large Program, Dynamics in Star-forming Cores (DiSCo) thus aims to investigate the origin and distribution of angular momentum of star-forming cores. DiSCo will survey all starless cores and Class 0 protostellar cores in the Perseus molecular complex down to ∼0.01 pc scales with <0.05 km s−1 velocity resolution using the dense gas tracer N2H+. Here, we present the first data sets from DiSCo towards the B1 and NGC 1333 regions in Perseus. Our results suggest that a dense core's internal velocity structure has little correlation with other core-scale properties, indicating these gas motions may be originated externally from cloud-scale turbulence. These first data sets also reaffirm the ability of GBT- Argus for studying dense core velocity structure and provided an empirical basis for future studies that address the angular momentum problem with a statistically broad sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence that the star formation process is linked to the intricate net of filaments in molecular clouds, which may be also due to gas compression from external triggers. We studied the southern region of the Perseus NGC 1333 molecular cloud, known to be heavily shaped by similar external triggers, to shed light on the process that perturbed the filament where the Class 0 IRAS4 protostars lie. We use new IRAM-NOEMA observations of SiO and CH3OH, both known to trace violent events as shocks, towards IRAS 4A as part of the Large Program Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS). We detected three parallel elongated (>6000 au) structures, called fingers, with narrow-line profiles (∼1.5 km s−1) peaked at the cloud systemic velocity, tracing gas with high density ((5–20) × 105 cm−3) and high temperature (80–160 K). They are chemically different, with the northern finger traced by both SiO and CH3OH ([CH3OH]/[SiO] ∼ 160–300), while the other two only by SiO ([CH3OH]/[SiO] ≤ 40). Among various possibilities, a train of three shocks, distanced by ≥5000 yr, would be consistent with the observations if a substantial fraction of silicon, frozen on to the grain mantles, is released by the shocks. We suggest that the shock train is due to an expanding gas bubble, coming behind NGC 1333 from the south-west and clashing against the filament where IRAS 4A lies. Finally, we propose a solution to the two-decades-long debate on the nature and origin of the widespread narrow SiO emission observed in the south part of NGC 1333, namely that it is due to unresolved trains of shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present 3 mm ALMA continuum and line observations at resolutions of 6.5 au and 13 au, respectively, toward the Class 0 system IRAS 16293-2422 A. The continuum observations reveal two compact sources toward IRAS 16293-2422 A, coinciding with compact ionized gas emission previously observed at radio wavelengths (A1 and A2), confirming the long-known radio sources as protostellar. The emission toward A2 is resolved and traces a dust disk with an FWHM size of ∼12 au, while the emission toward A1 sets a limit to the FWHM size of the dust disk of ∼4 au. We also detect spatially resolved molecular kinematic tracers near the protostellar disks. Several lines of the J = 5−4 rotational transition of HNCO, NH2CHO, and t-HCOOH are detected, with which we derived individual line-of-sight velocities. Using these together with the CS (J = 2−1), we fit Keplerian profiles toward the individual compact sources and derive masses of the central protostars. The kinematic analysis indicates that A1 and A2 are a bound binary system. Using this new context for the previous 30 yr of Very Large Array observations, we fit orbital parameters to the relative motion between A1 and A2 and find that the combined protostellar mass derived from the orbit is consistent with the masses derived from the gas kinematics. Both estimations indicate masses consistently higher (0.5 ≲ M1 ≲ M2 ≲ 2) than previous estimations using lower-resolution observations of the gas kinematics. The ALMA high-resolution data provides a unique insight into the gas kinematics and masses of a young deeply embedded bound binary system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. We present an initial overview of the filamentary structure in the Orion A molecular cloud utilizing a high angular and velocity resolution C18O(1–0) emission map that was recently produced as part of the CARMA-NRO Orion Survey. Aims. The main goal of this study is to build a credible method to study varying widths of filaments which has previously been linked to star formation in molecular clouds. Due to the diverse star forming activities taking place throughout its ~20 pc length, together with its proximity of 388 pc, the Orion A molecular cloud provides an excellent laboratory for such an experiment to be carried out with high resolution and high sensitivity. Methods. Using the widely-known structure identification algorithm, DisPerSE, on a three-dimensional (PPV) C18O cube, we identify 625 relatively short (the longest being 1.74 pc) filaments over the entire cloud. We studied the distribution of filament widths using FilChaP, a python package that we have developed and made publicly available. Results. We find that the filaments identified in a two square-degree PPV cube do not overlap spatially, except for the complex OMC-4 region that shows distinct velocity components along the line of sight. The filament widths vary between 0.02 and 0.3 pc depending on the amount of substructure that a filament possesses. The more substructure a filament has, the larger is its width. We also find that despite this variation, the filament width shows no anticorrelation with the central column density which is in agreement with previous Herschel observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present line and continuum observations made with the Submillimeter Array of the young stellar object Barnard 5 - IRS1 located in the Perseus molecular cloud. Our 12CO(2–1) line observations resolve the high-velocity bipolar north-east–south-west outflow associated with this source. We find that the outflowing gas shows different structures at three different velocity regimes, in both lobes, resulting in a spider-like morphology. In addition to the low-velocity, cone-like (wide-angle) lobes that have previously been observed, we report the presence of intermediate-velocity parabolic shells emerging very close to the Class I protostar, as well as high-velocity molecular bullets that appear to be associated with the optical/IR jet emanating from this source. These compact high-velocity features reach radial velocities of about 50 km s−1 away from the cloud velocity. We interpret that the peculiar spider-like morphology is a result of the molecular material being entrained by a wind with both a collimated jet-like component and a wide-angle component. We suggest that the outflow is in a transitional evolutionary phase between a mostly jet-driven flow and an outflow in which the entrainment is dominated by the wide-angle wind component. We also detect 1300 μm continuum emission at the position of the protostar, which likely arises from the dusty envelope and disc surrounding the protostar. Finally, we report the detection of 13CO(2–1) and SO(65–54) emission arising from the outflow and the location of the young stellar object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We presentμhigh angular resolution 1.3 mm and 850μm dust continuum data obtained with the Submillimeter Array toward 33 Class 0 protostars in nearby clouds (distance < 500 pc), which represents so far the largest survey toward protostellar binary/multiple systems. The median angular resolution in the survey is 2''.5, while the median linear resolution is approximately 600 AU. Compact dust continuum emission is observed from all sources in the sample. Twenty-one sources in the sample show signatures of binarity/multiplicity, with separations ranging from 50 AU to 5000 AU. The numbers of singles, binaries, triples, and quadruples in the sample are 12, 14, 5, and 2, respectively. The derived multiplicity frequency (MF) and companion star fraction (CSF) for Class 0 protostars are 0.64 ± 0.08 and 0.91 ± 0.05, respectively, with no correction for completeness. The derived MF and CSF in this survey are approximately two times higher than the values found in the binary surveys toward Class I young stellar objects, and approximately three (forMF) and four (for CSF) times larger than the values found among main-sequence stars, with a similar range of separations. Furthermore, the observed fraction of high-order multiple systems to binary systems in Class 0 protostars (0.50 ± 0.09) is also larger than the fractions found in Class I young stellar objects (0.31 ± 0.07) and main-sequence stars (⩽0.2). These results suggest that binary properties evolve as protostars evolve, as predicted by numerical simulations. The distribution of separations for Class 0 protostellar binary/multiple systems shows a general trend in which CSF increases with decreasing companion separation. We find that 67% ± 8% of the protobinary systems have circumstellar mass ratios below 0.5, implying that unequal-mass systems are preferred in the process of binary star formation. We suggest an empirical sequential fragmentation picture for binary star formation, based on this work and existing lower resolution single-dish observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]