Project Description

The NRO Star Formation Legacy Project is a large project to make wide-field molecular line maps of nearby star-forming regions at 25 arcsecond resolution using the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope. It started in 2014, and will last for about three years. The current target regions are (1) Orion A, (2) Aquila Rift, (3) California, and (4) M17 SWex molecular cloud complexes. More than 1 square degree area of each target cloud will be mapped with the newly-developed 100 GHz-band 4-beam dual-polarization receiver (FOREST, from 2014), 25-beam single-polarization receiver (BEARS), and single beam dual-polarization TZ receiver. The powerful new receiver FOREST is particularly well suited for conducting large-scale mapping observations. The survey is now ongoing.

The current project is an extension of the previous NRO Star Formation Project (PI; Ryohei Kawabe, 2007-2011) in which we mapped several nearby star-forming regions, such as Orion A, L1551, and Rho Ophiuchus molecular clouds, mainly in 12CO using BEARS. The data obtained in the previous project are available in this web page.

Instruments

  1. FOREST
  2. BEARS
  3. TZ and other receivers
  4. SAM45 (back end for FOREST and TZ)
  5. AC (back end for BEARS)

Target Clouds

  1. Orion A (~400pc)
    2. [RA, Dec](J2000) ~ BLC (5h40m0s, -07d20m00s) TRC (5h32m00s, -4d30m00s)
  2. Aquila Rift (~400pc)
    3. [RA, Dec] ~ (J2000)~BLC: [18h32m00s, -03d10m00s] TRC: [18h27m00s, -01d10m00s]
  3. California molecular cloud (~400pc)
    4. [l, b] ~ BLC: [166d00m00s, -9d30m00s] TRC: [164d40m00s, -8d10m00s], BLC: [159d32m20s, -8d57m40s] TRC: [158d32m20s, -7d57m40s]
  4. M17 SWex (~2kpc)
    5. [l,b] ~ BLC: [16d30m00s, -01d06m00s] TRC: [13d00m00s, -0d06m00s]

Main Target Lines

    rms (Tmb) rms~0.5 K@0.5km/s(12CO), ~0.5K@0.25km/s(13CO), 0.3 K@0.1 km/s (C18O, N2H+)
  1. 12CO (1-0)
  2. 13CO (1-0)
  3. C18O (1-0)
  4. N2H+ (1-0)
    5. (Aquila Rift, M17)
  5. some other molecular lines

    6. As backup observations [e.g., strong winds (> 5-10 m/s) and instrumental trouble], we will obtain the following line data of selected regions using the H20 receiver.
  6. NH3 (1-1), NH3 (2-2), NH3 (3-3)
  7. CCS (21-10)

Joint Projects

  • NRO45m+SIRPOL Joint Project
    • For Orion A, Aquila Rift, and M17, the SIRPOL team will obtain near-infrared JHK polarization vector maps to study the role of magentic fields in cloud dynamics. Visit the IRSF web page for description of SIRPOL.
  • CARMA+NRO45m Joint Project
    • For Orion A, we combine the CARMA data with our SF Legacy data to image a 1 square degree area of the Orion A molecular cloud at 6 arcsecond resolution. This CARMA + NRO45m joint project is now ongoing. Visit the CARMA web page in detail.

Science Goals

  • Molecuar outflow survey
    • identify molecular outflows with 12CO
  • Effects of stellar feedback in cloud structure
    • energy budgets, bubbles, HII regions, PDRs, etc
  • Cloud turbulence
    • By comparing CO data with the SIRPOL polarization maps, we analyze the properties of cloud turbulence
  • Physical properties of filaments and dense cores
    • Using Dendrogram and Hacar velocity-coherent filament identification scheme, we analyze the cloud internal structure.

Contact Address

sf_45m_legacy_2013@googlegroups.com