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We present observations of the Cepheus Flare obtained as part of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Gould Belt Legacy Survey (GBLS) with the SCUBA-2 instrument. We produce a catalogue of sources found by SCUBA-2, and separate these into starless cores and protostars. We determine masses and densities for each of our sources, using source temperatures determined by the Herschel Gould Belt Survey. We compare the properties of starless cores in four different molecular clouds: L1147/58, L1172/74, L1251 and L1228. We find that the core mass functions for each region typically show shallower-than-Salpeter behaviour. We find that L1147/58 and L1228 have a high ratio of starless cores to Class II protostars, while L1251 and L1174 have a low ratio, consistent with the latter regions being more active sites of current star formation, while the former are forming stars less actively. We determine that if modelled as thermally supported Bonnor-Ebert spheres, most of our cores have stable configurations accessible to them. We estimate the external pressures on our cores using archival 13CO velocity dispersion measurements and find that our cores are typically pressure confined, rather than gravitationally bound. We perform a virial analysis on our cores, and find that they typically cannot be supported against collapse by internal thermal energy alone, due primarily to the measured external pressures. This suggests that the dominant mode of internal support in starless cores in the Cepheus Flare is either non-thermal motions or internal magnetic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present SCUBA-2 450 μm and 850 μm observations of the W40 complex in the Serpens- Aquila region as part of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Gould Belt Survey (GBS) of nearby star-forming regions. We investigate radiative heating by constructing temperature maps from the ratio of SCUBA-2 fluxes using a fixed dust opacity spectral index, β = 1.8, and a beam convolution kernel to achieve a common 14.8 arcsec resolution. We identify 82 clumps ranging between 10 and 36 K with a mean temperature of 20 ± 3 K. Clump temperature is strongly correlated with proximity to the external OB association and there is no evidence that the embedded protostars significantly heat the dust. We identify 31 clumps that have cores with densities greater than 105cm-3. 13 of these cores contain embedded Class 0/I protostars. Many cores are associated with bright-rimmed clouds seen in Herschel 70 μm images. From JCMT HARP observations of the 12CO 3-2 line, we find contamination of the 850 μm band of up to 20 per cent. We investigate the free-free contribution to SCUBA-2 bands from large-scale and ultracompact HII regions using archival VLA data and find the contribution is limited to individual stars, accounting for 9 per cent of flux per beam at 450 μm or 12 per cent at 850 μm in these cases. We conclude that radiative heating has potentially influenced the formation of stars in the Dust Arc sub-region, favouring Jeans stable clouds in the warm east and fragmentation in the cool west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present SCUBA-2 450 and 850 µm observations of the Serpens MWC 297 region, part of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Gould Belt Survey of nearby star-forming regions. Simulations suggest that radiative feedback influences the star formation process and we investigate observational evidence for this by constructing temperature maps. Maps are derived from the ratio of SCUBA-2 fluxes and a two-component model of the JCMT beam for a fixed dust opacity spectral index of β = 1.8. Within 40 arcsec of the B1.5Ve Herbig star MWC 297, the submillimetre fluxes are contaminated by free-free emission with a spectral index of 1.03 ± 0.02, consistent with an ultracompact HII region and polar winds/jets. Contamination accounts for 73 ± 5 per cent and 82 ± 4 per cent of peak flux at 450 µm and 850 µm, respectively. The residual thermal disc of the star is almost undetectable at these wavelengths. Young stellar objects (YSOs) are confirmed where SCUBA-2 850 µm clumps identified by the FELLWALKER algorithm coincide with Spitzer Gould Belt Survey detections. We identify 23 objects and use Tbol to classify nine YSOs with masses 0.09 to 5.1 M8857;. We find two Class 0, one Class 0/I, three Class I and three Class II sources. The mean temperature is 15 ± 2 K for the nine YSOs and 32 ± 4 K for the 14 starless clumps. We observe a starless clump with an abnormally high mean temperature of 46 ± 2 K and conclude that it is radiatively heated by the star MWC 297. Jeans stability provides evidence that radiative heating by the star MWC 297 may be suppressing clump collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present Herschel observations from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey and SCUBA-2 science verification observations from the JCMT Gould Belt Survey of the B1 clump in the Perseus molecular cloud.We determined the dust emissivity index using four different techniques to combine the Herschel PACS+SPIRE data at 160-500μm with the SCUBA-2 data at 450μm and 850μm. Of our four techniques, we found that the most robust method was filtering out the large-scale emission in the Herschel bands to match the spatial scales recovered by the SCUBA-2 reduction pipeline. Using this method, we find β ≈ 2 toward the filament region and moderately dense material and lower β values (β ≈ 1.6) toward the dense protostellar cores, possibly due to dust grain growth. We find that β and temperature are more robust with the inclusion of the SCUBA-2 data, improving estimates from Herschel data alone by factors of ~2 for β and by ~40% for temperature. Furthermore, we find core mass differences of ≲30% compared to Herschel-only estimates with an adopted β = 2, highlighting the necessity of long-wavelength submillimeter data for deriving accurate masses of prestellar and protostellar cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Observations of the dust emission using millimetre/submillimetre bolometer arrays can be contaminated by molecular line flux, such as flux from 12CO. As the brightest molecular line in the submillimetre, it is important to quantify the contribution of CO flux to the dust continuum bands. Conversion factors were used to convert molecular line integrated intensities to flux detected by bolometer arrays in mJy beam−1. These factors were calculated for 12CO line integrated intensities to the SCUBA-2 850 and 450 μm bands. The conversion factors were then applied to HARP 12CO 3-2 maps of NGC 1333 in the Perseus complex and NGC 2071 and NGC 2024 in the Orion B molecular cloud complex to quantify the respective 12CO flux contribution to the 850 μm dust continuum emission. Sources with high molecular line contamination were analysed in further detail for molecular outflows and heating by nearby stars to determine the cause of the 12CO contribution. The majority of sources had a 12CO 3-2 flux contribution under 20 per cent. However, in regions of molecular outflows, the 12CO can dominate the source dust continuum (up to 79 per cent contamination) with 12CO fluxes reaching ∼68 mJy beam−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We present a statistical comparison of CO depletion in a set of local molecular clouds within the Gould Belt using Sub-millimetre Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) and Heterodyne Array Receiver Programme (HARP) data. This is the most wide-ranging study of depletion thus far within the Gould Belt. We estimate CO column densities assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium and, for a selection of sources, using the radiative transfer code radex in order to compare the two column density estimation methods. High levels of depletion are seen in the centres of several dust cores in all the clouds. We find that in the gas surrounding protostars, levels of depletion are somewhat lower than for starless cores with the exception of a few highly depleted protostellar cores in Serpens and NGC 2024. There is a tentative correlation between core mass and core depletion, particularly in Taurus and Serpens. Taurus has, on average, the highest levels of depletion. Ophiuchus has low average levels of depletion which could perhaps be related to the anomalous dust grain size distribution observed in this cloud. High levels of depletion are often seen around the edges of regions of optical emission (Orion) or in more evolved or less dynamic regions such as the bowl of L1495 in Taurus and the north-western region of Serpens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The Gould Belt Legacy Survey will map star-forming regions within 500 pc, using Heterodyne Array Receiver Programme (HARP), Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) and Polarimeter 2 (POL-2) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). This paper describes HARP observations of the J= 3 → 2 transitions of 13CO and C18O towards Orion A. The 15 arcsec resolution observations cover 5 pc of the Orion filament, including OMC 1 (including BN-KL and Orion bar), OMC 2/3 and OMC 4, and allow a comparative study of the molecular gas properties throughout the star-forming cloud. The filament shows a velocity gradient of ∼1 km s−1 pc−1 between OMC 1, 2 and 3, and high-velocity emission is detected in both isotopologues. The Orion Nebula and Bar have the largest masses and linewidths, and dominate the mass and energetics of the high-velocity material. Compact, spatially resolved emission from CH3CN, 13CH3OH, SO, HCOOCH3, CH3CHO and CH3OCHO is detected towards the Orion Hot Core. The cloud is warm, with a median excitation temperature of ∼24 K; the Orion Bar has the highest excitation temperature gas, at >80 K. The C18O excitation temperature correlates well with the dust temperature (to within 40 per cent). The C18O emission is optically thin, and the 13CO emission is marginally optically thick; despite its high mass, OMC 1 shows the lowest opacities. A virial analysis indicates that Orion A is too massive for thermal or turbulent support, but is consistent with a model of a filamentary cloud that is threaded by helical magnetic fields. The variation of physical conditions across the cloud is reflected in the physical characteristics of the dust cores. We find similar core properties between starless and protostellar cores, but variations in core properties with position in the filament. The OMC 1 cores have the highest velocity dispersions and masses, followed by OMC 2/3 and OMC 4. The differing fragmentation of these cores may explain why OMC 1 has formed clusters of high-mass stars, whereas OMC 4 produces fewer, predominantly low-mass stars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We propose an evolutionary path for pre-stellar cores on the radius-mass diagram, which is analogous to stellar evolutionary paths on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Using James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) observations of L1688 in the Ophiuchus star-forming complex, we analyse the HCO+ ( J= 4 → 3) spectral line profiles of pre-stellar cores. We find that of the 58 cores observed, 14 show signs of infall in the form of a blue-asymmetric double-peaked line profile. These 14 cores all lie beyond the Jeans mass line for the region on a radius-mass plot. Furthermore, another 10 cores showing tentative signs of infall, in their spectral line profile shapes, appear on or just over the Jeans mass line. We therefore propose the manner in which a pre-stellar core evolves across this diagram. We hypothesize that a core is formed in the low-mass, low-radius region of the plot. It then accretes quasi-statically, increasing in both mass and radius. When it crosses the limit of gravitational instability, it begins to collapse, decreasing in radius, towards the region of the diagram where protostellar cores are seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Legacy Survey of star formation in the Gould Belt, we present early science results for Taurus. CO maps have been secured along the north-west ridge and bowl, collectively known as L 1495, along with deep CO and C O maps in two subregions. With these data, we search for molecular outflows, and use the distribution of flows, Herbig–Haro (HH) objects and shocked H line-emission features, together with the population of young stars, protostellar cores and starless condensations to map star formation across this extensive region. In total, 21 outflows are identified. It is clear that the bowl is more evolved than the ridge, harbouring a greater population of T Tauri stars and a more diffuse, more turbulent ambient medium. By comparison, the ridge contains a much younger, less widely distributed population of protostars which, in turn, is associated with a greater number of molecular outflows. We estimate the ratio of the numbers of pre-stellar to protostellar cores in L 1495 to be 1.3–2.3, and of gravitationally unbound starless cores to (gravitationally bound) pre-stellar cores to be 1. If we take previous estimates of the protostellar lifetime of 5 10 yr, this indicates a pre-stellar lifetime of 9( 3) 10 yr. From the number of outflows, we also crudely estimate the star formation efficiency in L 1495, finding it to be compatible with a canonical value of 10–15 per cent. We note that molecular outflow-driving sources have redder near-infrared colours than their HH jet-driving counterparts. We also find that the smaller, denser cores are associated with the more massive outflows, as one might expect if mass build-up in the flow increases with the collapse and contraction of the protostellar envelope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present optical and submillimetre polarimetry data of the Bok globule CB3. We also present optical polarimetry and submillimetre continuum data of the Bok globule CB246. We use each set of polarimetry data to infer the magnetic field orientation in each of the clouds. The optical data can only trace the field orientation in the low-density edge regions of clouds, because if the extinction is too high then no optical emission is transmitted. The submillimetre data can only trace the field orientation in the high-density central regions of the clouds, because current submillimetre polarimeters are only sensitive to high column densities. It has previously been found that near-infrared polarization mapping of background stars does not accurately trace the magnetic field in dense cloud regions, and hence that the grains responsible for near-infrared polarization are under-represented in those regions. This may be due to a lack of aligned grains in dense regions. We test this by comparing the field orientations measured by our two independent methods of optical and submillimetre polarimetry. We find that the field orientation deduced from the optical data matches up well with the orientation estimated from the submillimetre data. We therefore claim that both methods are accurately tracing the same magnetic field in CB3. Hence, in this case, there must be significant numbers of aligned dust grains in the high-density region, and they do indeed trace the magnetic field in the submillimetre. We find an offset of 14° between the magnetic field orientation and the short axis of the globule. This is consistent with the mean value of 3° found in our previous work on pre-stellar cores, even though CB3 is a protostellar core. CB246 is a pre-stellar core, and in this case the offset between the magnetic field orientation inferred from the optical polarization data and the short axis of the core inferred from the submillimetre continuum data is 20°. Taken together, the six pre-stellar cores that we have now studied in this way show a mean offset between magnetic field orientation and core short axis of , in apparent contradiction with some models of magnetically dominated star formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present observations of L1155 and L1148 in the Cepheus molecular cloud, taken using the Far Infrared Surveyor (FIS) instrument on the Akari satellite. We compare these data to submillimetre data taken using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, and far-infrared data taken with the imaging photo-polarimeter (ISOPHOT) camera on board the Infrared Space Observatory ( ISO) satellite. The Akari data cover a similar spectral window and are consistent with the ISO data. All of the data show a relation between the position of the peak of emission and the wavelength for the core of L1155. We interpret this as a temperature gradient. We fit modified blackbody curves to the spectral energy distributions at two positions in the core and see that the central core in L1155 (L1155C) is approximately 2° warmer at one edge than it is in the centre. We consider a number of possible heating sources and conclude that the A6V star BD+67 1263 is the most likely candidate. This star is at a distance of 0.7 pc from the front of L1155C in the plane of the sky. We carry out radiative transfer modelling of the L1155C core including the effects from the nearby star. We find that we can generate a good fit to the observed data at all wavelengths, and demonstrate that the different morphologies of the core at different wavelengths can be explained by the observed 2° temperature gradient. The L1148 core exhibits a similar morphology to that of L1155C, and the data are also consistent with a temperature gradient across the core. In this case, the most likely heating source is the star BD197053. Our findings illustrate very clearly that the apparent observed morphology of a pre-stellar core can be highly dependent on the wavelength of the observation, and that temperature gradients must be taken into account before converting images into column density distributions. This is important to note when interpreting Akari and Spitzer data and will also be significant for Herschel data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have re-analysed all of the Submillimetre Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) archive data of the Orion star-forming regions. We have put together all of the data taken at different times by different groups. Consequently, we have constructed the deepest submillimetre maps of these regions ever made. There are four regions that have been mapped: Orion A North and South, and Orion B North and South. We find that two of the regions, Orion A North and Orion B North, have deeper sensitivity and completeness limits, and contain a larger number of sources, so we concentrate on these two. We compare the data with archive data from the Spitzer Space Telescope to determine whether or not a core detected in the submillimetre is pre-stellar in nature. We extract all of the pre-stellar cores from the data and make a histogram of the core masses. This can be compared to the stellar initial mass function (IMF). We find the high-mass core mass function (CMF) follows a roughly Salpeter-like slope, just like the IMF, as seen in previous work. Our deeper maps allow us to see that the CMF turns over at, about a factor of 4 higher than our completeness limit. This turnover has never previously been observed, and is only visible here due to our much deeper maps. It mimics the turnover seen in the stellar IMF at . The low-mass side of the CMF is a power law with an exponent of, 0.35 ± 0.2 which is consistent with the low-mass slope of the young cluster IMF of 0.3 ± 0.1. This shows that the CMF continues to mimic the shape of the IMF all the way down to the lower completeness limit of these data at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present submillimetre data for the L1689 cloud in the ρ Ophiuchi molecular cloud complex. We detect a number of starless and pre-stellar cores and protostellar envelopes. We also detect a number of filaments for the first time in the submillimetre continuum that are parallel both to each other, and to filaments observed in the neighbouring L1688 cloud. These filaments are also seen in the 13CO observations of L1689. The filaments contain all of the star-formation activity in the cloud. L1689 lies next to the well-studied L1688 cloud that contains the ρ Oph-A core. L1688 has a much more active star-formation history than L1689 despite their apparent similarity in 13CO data. Hence, we label L1689 as the dog that didn't bark. We endeavour to explain this apparent anomaly by comparing the total mass of each cloud that is currently in the form of dense material such as pre-stellar cores. We note firstly that L1688 is more massive than L1689, but we also find that when normalized to the total mass of each cloud, the L1689 cloud has a much lower percentage of mass in dense cores than L1688. We attribute this to the hypothesis of Loren that the star formation in the ρ Ophiuchi complex is being affected and probably dominated by the external influence of the nearby Upper Scorpius OB association and predominantly by σ Sco. L1689 is further from σ Sco and is therefore less active. The influence of σ Sco appears none the less to have created the filaments that we observe in L1689. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prestellar cores represent the stage of star formation immediately prior to protostellar collapse. We present polarisation maps of three prestellar cores, L183, L1544 and L43. In each case the magnetic field lines are uniform but not parallel to the semi-minor axis of the core. This suggests that magnetic and thermal pressure support alone are inconsistent with the data. We also calculate the magnetic field strength using the Chandrasekhar-Fermi technique and find that all three cores are magnetically supercritical by a factor of ∼ 2. This is consistent with the observation that the magnetic field is not dominating the evolution of these cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

C[sup 17]O J = 2 → 1 observations have been carried out towards the pre-stellar core L1689B. By comparing the relative strengths of the hyperfine components of this line, the emission is shown to be optically thin. This allows accurate CO column densities to be determined and, for reference, this calculation is described in detail. The hydrogen column densities that these measurements imply are substantially smaller than those calculated from SCUBA dust emission data. Furthermore, the C[sup 17]O J = 2 → 1 column densities are approximately constant across L1689B, whereas the SCUBA column densities are peaked towards the centre. The most likely explanation is that CO is depleted from the central regions of L1689B. Simple models of pre-stellar cores with an inner depleted region are compared with the results. This enables the magnitude of the CO depletion to be quantified and also allows the spatial extent of the freeze-out to be firmly established. We estimate that within about 5000 au of the centre of L1689B, over 90 per cent of the CO has frozen on to grains. This level of depletion can only be achieved after a duration that is at least comparable to the free-fall time-scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]