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Abstract:
To investigate how the physical properties of cores affect the development of stars nested within them, we study 6 transitions of formaldehyde (H2CO) across 13 protostellar cores in the Perseus molecular cloud. We target a representative sample of dense cores that include a mix of Class 0/I systems as well as cores with single or multiple stars. We use the radiative transfer codes RADEX and XCLASS to measure the physical properties across each core. We produce maps of temperature, H2CO column density, H2 density and ortho-to-para ratio for all cores. We find an anticorrelation between temperature and ortho-to- para ratio, which is expected from previous studies, but we find no correlation between temperature and the number of stars or with the evolutionary stage. We see potential evidence that cores with higher H2CO column densities tend to have higher masses or multiple embedded objects, but we require a larger sample to confirm this.. This study suggests that some physical properties of cores may be determined by the initial condition of the system, whereas others could be affected by feedback from the stars.
