A census of dense cores in the Taurus L1495 cloud from theHerschelGould Belt Survey

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw301
• Publication Date: 2016-02-12T04:39:56Z
• Authors: K. A. Marsh; J. M. Kirk; Ph. André; M. J. Griffin; V. Könyves; P. Palmeirim; A. Men'shchikov; D. Ward-Thompson; M. Benedettini; D. W. Bresnahan; J. Di Francesco; D. Elia; F. Motte; N. Peretto; S. Pezzuto; A. Roy; S. Sadavoy; N. Schneider; L. Spinoglio; G. J. White
• Keywords: FOS: Physical sciences; F500; [SDU.ASTR] Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Astrophysics / csillagászat; 01 natural sciences; Stars formation; submillimetre; L1495; 0103 physical sciences; ISM individual objects; QB Astronomy; QC; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); QB; [SDU.ASTR]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; local interstellar matter; Luminosity function; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; 520; ISM clouds; asztrofizika; Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics; 13. Climate action; Mass function; Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); [PHYS.ASTR] Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; [PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]

We present a catalogue of dense cores in a $\sim 4^\circ\times2^\circ$ field of the Taurus star-forming region, inclusive of the L1495 cloud, derived from Herschel SPIRE and PACS observations in the 70 $��$m, 160 $��$m, 250 $��$m, 350 $��$m, and 500 $��$m continuum bands. Estimates of mean dust temperature and total mass are derived using modified blackbody fits to the spectral energy distributions. We detect 525 starless cores of which $\sim10$-20% are gravitationally bound and therefore presumably prestellar. Our census of unbound objects is $\sim85$% complete for $M>0.015\,M_\odot$ in low density regions ($A_V\stackrel{0.1\,M_\odot$ overall. The prestellar core mass function (CMF) is consistent with lognormal form, resembling the stellar system initial mass function, as has been reported previously. All of the inferred prestellar cores lie on filamentary structures whose column densities exceed the expected threshold for filamentary collapse, in agreement with previous reports. Unlike the prestellar CMF, the unbound starless CMF is not lognormal, but instead is consistent with a power-law form below $0.3\,M_\odot$ and shows no evidence for a low-mass turnover. It resembles previously reported mass distributions for CO clumps at low masses ($M\stackrel{<br/>17 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS<br/>