SHAO Astrophysics Colloquium

Title: The initial conditions of star formation

Speaker: Tie Liu (SHAO)

Time: 3:00 pm, October 10th (Thursday) 

Location: Lecture hall, 3rd floor

Abstract Body: Stars form in dense regions within molecular clouds, called pre-stellar cores (PSCs), which provide information on the initial conditions in the process of star formation. However, the initial conditions of star formation in different Galactic environments are far from well understood. The low dust temperature (<14 K) of Planck Galactic Cold Clumps (PGCCs) makes them likely to be pre-stellar objects or at the very initial stage of protostellar collapse. "TOP-SCOPE" are joint survey programs targeting at Planck Cold Clumps. "TOP", standing for "TRAO Observations of Planck cold clumps", aims at an unbiased CO/13CO survey of 2000 PGCCs with the Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory 14-meter telescope. "SCOPE", standing for "SCUBA-2 Continuum Observations of Pre-protostellar Evolution", is a legacy survey using SCUBA-2 onboard of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at East Asia Observatory (EAO) to survey 1000 PGCCs at 850 micron. We are also actively developing follow-up observations with other ground-based telescopes (NRO 45-m, Effelsberg 100-m, IRAM 30-m. SMT, KVN, SMA, ALMA). We aim to statistically study the initial conditions of star formation and cloud evolution in various kinds of environments. I will present the progress and the future plans of this internationally collaborating project. In particular, I will introduce the preliminary results from our cycle 6 ALMA observations.