High-Resolution Molecular Line Observations of the Core and Outflow in Orion B

Extract

High-resolution CO J → 1 → 2 observations of the Orion B molecular outflow show that the outflow is unipolar, and that there is evidence of acceleration of molecular gas at up to 0.5pc from the driving star. The highest-velocity material, as well as being furthest from the source, seems to lie close to the central axis of the flow, and is presumably being accelerated by entrainment in the flow or jet emanating from the star. We have also mapped the HCO⁺J = 3 → 2 emission at 19-arcsec resolution. We derive an excitation temperature of around 25 K in the cloud core, and a core mass of about 75 M_⊙, this estimate is in accord with a model in which the core has a kinetic temperature of 30-50 K, with no molecular depletion on to grains. This is in contrast to the recent suggestion that the core contains cold isothermal protostars.