Single-dish sub-millimeter observations have recently revealed the existence of a substantial, chemically peculiar, molecular gas component located in the innermost circumstellar environment of the very massive luminous blue variable star $η$ Carinae. Here, we present 5$"$-resolution interferometric observations of the 1$\rightarrow$0 rotational transition of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) toward this star. The emission is concentrated in the central few arcseconds around $η$ Carinae and shows a clear 150 km s$^{-1}$ velocity gradient running from west-north-west (blue) to east-south-east (red). Given the extent, location, and kinematics of this molecular material, we associate it with the complex of dusty arcs and knots seen in mid-infrared emission near the center of the Homunculus nebula. Indeed, the shielding provided by this dust could help explain how molecules survive in the presence of the intense UV radiation field produced by $η$ Carinae. The dust located in the central few arcseconds around $η$ Carinae and the molecular component described here have most likely formed in situ, out of material expelled by the massive interacting binary system. Thus, $η$ Carinae offers us a rare glimpse on the processes leading to the formation of dust and molecules around massive stars that are so relevant to the interpretation of dust and molecule detections at high redshifts.
The nature and origin of the molecular gas component located in the circumstellar vicinity of $η$ Carinae are still far from being completely understood. Here, we present Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) CO(3$-$2) observations with a high angular resolution ($\sim$0.15$''$), and a great sensitivity that are employed to reveal the origin of this component in $η$ Carinae. These observations reveal much higher velocity ($-$300 to $+$270 km s$^{-1}$) blue and redshifted molecular thermal emission than previously reported, which we associate with the lobes of the Homunculus Nebul…
The binary eta Carinae is the closest example of a very massive star, which may have formed through a merger during its Great Eruption in the mid-nineteenth century. We aimed to confirm and improve the kinematics using a spectroscopic data set taken with the CTIO 1.5 m telescope over the time period of 2008-2020, covering three periastron passages of the highly eccentric orbit. We measure line variability of H-alpha and H-beta, where the radial velocity and orbital kinematics of the primary star were measured from the H-beta emission line using a bisector method. At phases away from periastron…
The evolved massive binary star Eta Carinae underwent eruptive mass loss events that formed the complex bi-polar Homunculus nebula harboring tens of solar masses of unusually nitrogen-rich gas and dust. Despite expectations for the presence of a significant molecular component to the gas, detections have been observationally challenged by limited access to the far-infrared and the intense thermal continuum. A spectral survey of the atomic and rotational molecular transitions was carried out with the Herschel Space Observatory, revealing a rich spectrum of broad emission lines originating in th…
We present Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) observations of $^{12}$CO2$-$1 emission from circumstellar material around the massive star $η$~Carinae. These observations reveal new structural details about the cool equatorial torus located $\sim$4000 au from the star. The CO torus is not a complete azimuthal loop, but rather, is missing its near side, which appears to have been cleared away. The missing material matches the direction of apastron in the eccentric binary system, making it likely that $η$~Car's companion played an important role in disrupting portions of the torus soon after e…
In circumstellar gas, the complex organic molecule methanol has been found almost exclusively around young stellar objects, and is thus regarded as a signpost of recent star formation. Here we report the first probable detection of methanol around an evolved high-mass star, in the complex circumstellar environment around the Luminous Blue Variable $η$ Carinae, while using ALMA to investigate molecular cloud conditions traced by CO (2-1) in an orbit phase of the massive binary preceding the 2020 periastron. Favoring methanol over a $^{13}$CS alternative, the emission originates from hot ($T_{\r…
Contrary to recent claims, we argue that the orientation of the massive binary system Eta Carinae is such that the secondary star is closer to us at periastron passage, and it is on the far side during most of the time of the eccentric orbit. The binary orientation we dispute is based on problematic interpretations of recent observations. Among these observations are the radial velocity of the absorption component of He I P-Cyg lines, of the He II $\lambda4686$ emission line, and of the Br$γ$ line emitted by clumps close to the binary system. We also base our orientation on observations of asy…
Context. Red supergiant stars possess surface features and extended molecular atmospheres. Photospheric convection may be a crucial factor of the levitation of the outer atmospheric layers. However, the mechanism responsible is still poorly understood. Aims. We image the stellar surface of V602 Carinae (V602 Car) to constrain the morphology and contrast of the surface features and of the extended atmospheric layers. Methods. We observed V602 Car with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) PIONIER instrument (1.53-1.78 $\mathrmμ$m) between May and July 2016, and April and July 2019 with…
We present follow-up optical imaging and spectroscopy of one of the light echoes of $η$ Carinae's 19th-century Great Eruption discovered by Rest et al. (2012). By obtaining images and spectra at the same light echo position between 2011 and 2014, we follow the evolution of the Great Eruption on a three-year timescale. We find remarkable changes in the photometric and spectroscopic evolution of the echo light. The $i$-band light curve shows a decline of $\sim 0.9$ mag in $\sim 1$ year after the peak observed in early 2011 and a flattening at later times. The spectra show a pure-absorption early…
$η$~Car is one of the most massive stars in the Galaxy. It underwent a massive eruption in the 19th century, which produced the impressive bipolar Homunculus nebula now surrounding it. The central star is an eccentric binary with a period of 5.54\,years. Although the companion has not been detected directly, it causes time-variable ionization and colliding-wind X-ray emission. By characterizing the complex structure and kinematics of the ejecta close to the star, we aim to constrain past and present mass loss of $η$~Car. $η$~Car is observed with the extreme adaptive optics instrument SPHERE at…
We present the molecular gas morphology and kinematics of seven nearby Seyfert galaxies obtained from our 230~GHz ALMA observations. The CO J=2-1 kinematics within the inner $\sim30$" ($\lesssim9$~kpc) reveals rotation patterns that have been explored using the Bertola rotation model and a modified version of the Kinemetry package. The latter algorithm reveals various deviations from pure circular rotation in the inner kiloparsec of all seven galaxies, including kinematic twists, decoupled and counter-rotating cores. A comparison of the global molecular gas and stellar kinematics show overall …
We present results from high resolution optical spectra toward 66 young stars in the Orion B molecular cloud to study their kinematics and other properties. Observations of the H$α$ and Li I 6707 Å lines are used to check membership and accretion properties. While the stellar radial velocities of in NGC 2068 and L1622 show good agreement with that of the molecular gas, many of the stars in NGC 2024 show a considerable offset. This could be a signature of either expansion of the cluster, high degree of the ejection of the stars from the cluster through the dynamical interaction, or the accelera…
We present a study of dense molecular gas kinematics in seventeen nearby protostellar systems using single-dish and interferometric molecular line observations. The non-axisymmetric envelopes around a sample of Class 0/I protostars were mapped in the N2H+ (J=1-0) tracer with the IRAM 30m, CARMA and PdBI as well as NH3 (1,1) with the VLA. The molecular line emission is used to construct line-center velocity and linewidth maps for all sources to examine the kinematic structure in the envelopes on spatial scales from 0.1 pc to ~1000 AU. The direction of the large-scale velocity gradients from sin…
We present observations and analysis of the massive molecular outflow G331.512-0.103, obtained with ALMA band 7, continuing the work from Merello et al. (2013). Several lines were identified in the observed bandwidth, consisting of two groups: lines with narrow profiles, tracing the emission from the core ambient medium; and lines with broad velocity wings, tracing the outflow and shocked gas emission. The physical and chemical conditions, such as density, temperature, and fractional abundances are calculated. The ambient medium, or core, has a mean density of $\sim 5\times 10^6$ cm$^{-3}$ and…
We present high angular resolution ($\sim$0.94$"$) $^{12}$CO(1-0) Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations obtained during the 2014 long baseline campaign from the eruptive bipolar flow from the multiple XZ Tau stellar system discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These observations reveal, for the first time, the kinematics of the molecular flow. The kinematics of the different ejections close to XZ Tau reveal a rotating and expanding structure with a southeast-northwest velocity gradient. The youngest eruptive bubbles unveiled in the optical HST images are in…
The kinematics and dynamics of young stellar populations enable us to test theories of star formation. With this aim, we continue our analysis of the SDSS-III/APOGEE IN-SYNC survey, a high resolution near infrared spectroscopic survey of young clusters. We focus on the Orion A star-forming region, for which IN-SYNC obtained spectra of $\sim2700$ stars. In Paper IV we used these data to study the young stellar population. Here we study the kinematic properties through radial velocities ($v_r$). The young stellar population remains kinematically associated with the molecular gas, following a $\s…
We report the Submillimeter Array (SMA) observations of the polarized 0.88\,mm thermal dust emission and various molecular line transitions toward the early B-type ($L_{*}\sim2\times10^{3}L_{\odot}$) star-forming region G192.16$-$3.84 (IRAS 05553+1631). The peak of the continuum Stokes-I emission coincides with a hot rotating disk/envelope (SO$_{2}$ rotational temperature T$_{rot}^{SO_{2}}$$\sim84^{+18}_{-13}$\,K), with a north-south velocity gradient. Joint analysis of the rotation curve traced by HCO$^{+}$ 4-3 and SO$_{2}$ 19$_{1,19}-18_{0,18}$ suggests that the dense molecular gas is underg…
We present H13CO+ (J=1-0) and HNC (J=1-0) maps of regions in Serpens South, Serpens Main and NGC 1333 containing filaments. We also observe the Serpens regions using H13CN (J=1-0). These dense gas tracer molecular line observations carried out with CARMA have an angular resolution of ~7", a spectral resolution of ~0.16 km/s and a sensitivity of 50-100 mJy/beam. Although the large scale structure compares well with the Herschel dust continuum maps, we resolve finer structure within the filaments identified by Herschel. The H13CO+ emission distribution agrees with the existing CARMA N2H+ (J=1-0)…
We derive the distance and structure of the Perseus molecular cloud by combining trigonometric parallaxes from Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations, taken as part of the GOBELINS survey, and Gaia Data Release 2. Based on our VLBA astrometry, we obtain a distance of 321+/-10 pc for IC 348. This is fully consistent with the mean distance of 320+/-26 measured by Gaia. The VLBA observations toward NGC 1333 are insufficient to claim a successful distance measurement to this cluster. Gaia parallaxes, on the other hand, yield a mean distance of 293+/-22 pc. Hence, the distance along the line …
We present a comprehensive analysis on the evolution of envelopes surrounding protostellar systems in the Perseus molecular cloud using data from the MASSES survey. We focus our attention to the C$^{18}$O(2--1) spectral line, and we characterize the shape, size, and orientation of 54 envelopes and measure their fluxes, velocity gradients, and line widths. To look for evolutionary trends, we compare these parameters to the bolometric temperature Tbol, a tracer of protostellar age. We find evidence that the angular difference between the elongation angle of the C$^{18}$O envelope and the outflow…
We have mapped 27 massive star-forming regions associated with water masers using three dense gas tracers: HC3N 10-9, HNC 1-0 and C2H 1-0. The FWHM sizes of HNC clumps and C2H clumps are about 1.5 and 1.6 times higher than those of HC3N, respectively, which can be explained by the fact that HC3N traces more dense gas than HNC and C2H. We found evidence for increase in optical depth of C2H with `radius' from center to outer regions in some targets, supporting the chemical model of C2H. The C2H optical depth is found to decline as molecular clouds evolve to later stage, suggesting that C2H might…
We present a statistical analysis of the gravoturbulent velocity fluctuations in molecular cloud complexes extracted from our "Cloud Factory" galactic-scale ISM simulation suite. For this purpose, we produce non-LTE $^{12}$CO J=1-0 synthetic observations and apply the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) reduction technique on a representative sample of cloud complexes. The velocity fluctuations are self-consistently generated by different physical mechanisms at play in our simulations, which include galactic-scale forces, gas self-gravity, and supernova feedback. The statistical analysis sugges…
We examine the clustering and kinematics of young stellar objects (YSOs) in the North America/Pelican Nebulae, as revealed by Gaia astrometry, in relation to the structure and motions of the molecular gas, as indicated in molecular line maps. The Gaia parallaxes and proper motions allow us to significantly refine previously published lists of YSOs, demonstrating that many of the objects previously thought to form a distributed population turn out to be non-members. The members are subdivided into at least 6 spatio-kinematic groups, each of which is associated with its own molecular cloud compo…
The dynamical processes that control star formation in molecular clouds are not well understood, and in particular, it is unclear if rotation plays a major role in cloud evolution. We investigate the importance of rotation in cloud evolution by studying the kinematic structure of a spiral-shaped Galactic molecular cloud G052.24+00.74. The cloud belongs to a large filament, and is stretching over ~ 100 pc above the Galactic disk midplane. The spiral-shaped morphology of the cloud suggests that the cloud is rotating. We have analysed the kinematic structure of the cloud, and study the fragmentat…
We performed a multi-wavelength study toward the filamentary cloud G47.06+0.26 to investigate the gas kinematics and star formation. We present the 12CO (J=1-0), 13CO (J=1-0) and C18O (J=1-0) observations of G47.06+0.26 obtained with the Purple Mountain Observation (PMO) 13.7 m radio telescope to investigate the detailed kinematics of the filament. The 12CO (J=1-0) and 13CO (J=1-0) emission of G47.06+0.26 appear to show a filamentary structure. The filament extends about 45 arcmin (58.1 pc) along the east-west direction. The mean width is about 6.8 pc, as traced by the 13CO (J=1-0) emission. G…
A homogeneous three-dimensional view of Molecular Cloud kinematics out to 2.5 kpc. Using Young Stellar Objects and Open Clusters as complementary tracers
Universidade da Coruña (UDC)(科鲁尼亚大学);CIGUS CITIC, Centre for Information and Communications Technologies Research(信息与通信技术研究中心 CIGUS CITIC);Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)(奥地利科学技术研究所);Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias(加那利群岛天体物理研究所);Universidad de La Laguna (ULL)(拉古纳大学);Universitat de Barcelona (UB)(巴塞罗那大学);Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB)(宇宙科学研究所 ICCUB);Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC)(加泰罗尼亚空间研究学院)
The dynamical states of molecular clouds may affect the properties of the stars they form. In the vicinity of the Trifid Nebula ($d=1180\pm25$ pc), the main star cluster (Trifid Main) lies within an expanding section of the molecular cloud; however, ~0.3 deg to the north (Trifid North), the cloud's velocity structure is more tranquil. We acquired a Chandra X-ray observation to identify pre-main-sequence stars in Trifid North, complementing a previous observation of Trifid Main. In Trifid North, we identified 51 candidate pre-main-sequence stars, of which 13 are high-confidence Trifid members b…
Bailey & Basu (2014) show analysis of density and mass-to-flux ratio maps for simulations with either an ionisation profile which takes into account photoionisation (step-like profile) or a cosmic ray only ionisation profile. We extend this study to analyse the effect of these ionisation profiles on velocity structures, kinematics, and synthetic spectra. Clump regions are found to occur at the convergence of two flows with a low velocity region and velocity direction transition occurring at the junction. Models with evident substructure show that core formation occurs on the periphery of these…
We present an expanded kinematic study of the young cluster NGC 2264 based upon optical radial velocities measured using multi-fiber echelle spectroscopy at the 6.5 meter MMT and Magellan telescopes. We report radial velocities for 695 stars, of which approximately 407 stars are confirmed or very likely members. Our results more than double the number of members with radial velocities from F{\H u}r{é}sz et al., resulting in a much better defined kinematic relationship between the stellar population and the associated molecular gas. In particular, we find that there is a significant subset of s…
The disc around the Herbig Ae/Be star HD 100546 is one of the most extensively studied discs in the southern sky. Although there is a wealth of information about its dust content and composition, not much is known about its gas and large scale kinematics. We detect and study the molecular gas in the disc at spatial resolution from 7.7" to 18.9" using the APEX telescope. The lines 12CO J=7-6, J=6-5, J=3-2, 13CO J=3-2 and [C I] 3P2-3P1 are observed, diagnostic of disc temperature, size, chemistry, and kinematics. We use parametric disc models that reproduce the low-J 12CO emission from Herbig~Ae…