Investigations of Massive Filaments and Star Formation (INFANT). I. Core Identification and Core Mass Function

Abstract

Filamentary structures are ubiquitously found in high-mass star-forming clouds. To investigate the relationship between filaments and star formation, we carry out the INFANT (Investigations of Massive Filaments and Sar Formation) survey, a multiscale, multiwavelength survey of massive filamentary clouds with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 3/band 6 and Very Large Array K band. In this first paper, we present the ALMA band 6 continuum observations toward a sample of eight high-mass star-forming filaments. We covered each target with an approximately rectangular mosaic field of view with two 12 m array configurations, achieving an angular resolution of ∼0.″6 (2700 au at 4.5 kpc) and a continuum rms of ∼0.1 mJy beam ^−1 (∼0.06 M _⊙ in gas mass assuming 15 K). We identify cores using the getsf and astrodendro and find the former is more robust in terms of both identification and measuring flux densities. We identify in total 183 dense cores (15–36 cores in each cloud) and classify their star formation states via outflow and warm gas tracers. The protostellar cores are statistically more massive than the prestellar cores, possibly indicating further accretion onto cores after the formation of protostars. For the high-mass end ( ${M}_{\mathrm{core}}$ > 1.5 M _⊙ ) of the core mass function (CMF) we derive a power-law index of −1.15 ± 0.12 for the whole sample and −1.70 ± 0.25 for the prestellar population. We also find a steepening trend in CMF with cloud evolution (−0.89 ± 0.15 for the young group versus. −1.44 ± 0.25 for the evolved group) and discuss its implications for cluster formation.

Keywords

• Star formation
• Initial mass function
• Interstellar filaments
• Surveys
• Molecular clouds