.645U The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 63:645-660,1987 March © 1987. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. .63. 7ApJS. A CO SURVEY OF THE DARK NEBULAE IN PERSEUS, TAURUS, AND AURIGA 198 H. Ungerechts and P. Thaddeus Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Received 1986 February 20; accepted 1986 September 4 ABSTRACT A region of 750 square degrees including the well-known dark nebulae in Perseus, Taurus, and Auriga was surveyed in the 115 GHz, J = l-0 line of CO at an angular resolution of 0?5. The spectral resolution of the survey is 250 kHz, or 0.65 km s-1, and the rms noise per spectrometer channel is 0.14 K. Emission was detected from nearly 50% of the observed positions; most positions with emission are in the Taurus-Auriga dark nebulae, a cloud associated with IC 348 and NGC 1333, and a cloud associated with the California nebula (NGC 1499) and NGC 1579, which overlaps the northern Taurus-Auriga nebulae but is separated from them in velocity. Other objects seen in this survey are several small clouds at Galactic latitude —25° to —35° southwest of the Taurus clouds, and the L1558 and L1551 clouds in the south. The mass of each of the IC 348 and NGC 1499 4 4 clouds is about 5X10 M0, and that of the Taurus-Auriga clouds about 3.5 X10 M0; the total mass of all 5 clouds surveyed is about 2x10 Af0. On a large scale, the rather quiescent Taurus clouds are close to virial equilibrium, but the IC 348 and NGC 1499 clouds are more dynamically active. Several small clouds with virial masses 10-30 times their CO masses are similar to the diffuse molecular clouds at high Galactic latitudes. Subject headings: interstellar: molecules — nebulae: general — nebulae: H n regions I. INTRODUCTION Toelle étal. 1981; Thaddeus étal 1985; Thaddeus, Vrtilek, and Gottlieb 1985), and infrared observations (Benson, Myers, The extensive complex of dark nebulae in Perseus, Taurus, and Wright 1984; Beichman etal 1986) have shown that and Auriga is one of the best examples of nearby molecular low-mass stars have formed in or near a significant fraction of clouds in which the formation of stars, particularly those of these dense cores. All cores he in regions of high visual low mass, can be observed. These clouds are close enough to extinction which tend to appear on optical photographs as be studied in great detail, not only with moderate-aperture long, extended, dark filaments (Barnard 1927). optical and infrared telescopes but also with single-antenna A complete survey of the molecular clouds in this region is radio telescopes. In this paper we present a complete survey highly desirable as a prerequisite to reahstic estimates of the in the CO 1-0 line of the conspicuous obscurations in Taurus total masses, interpretations of the IRAS survey, and a gen- and Auriga; the star-forming cloud complex in Perseus re- eral understanding of the structure and dynamics of the lated to IC 348, NGC 1333, and the Per OB2 association; and clouds. During the past decade, CO maps have become a cloud extending from the California nebula (NGC 1499) in accepted as the best currently available tool to survey the Perseus along NGC 1579 and LkHa 101 well into Auriga. distribution of molecular gas. Although CO emission was While young stars with rather high luminosity are associated detected in Heiles Cloud 2 soon after the first detection of the with the IC 348 cloud, only low-mass stars, e.g., T Tauri stars, J = 1-0 line in interstellar space (Wilson, Jefferts, and Penzias are found near the Taurus and Auriga clouds (see, e.g., Jones 1970; Penzias etal 1972), to date no complete, unbiased and Herbig 1979; Cohen and Kuhi 1979). survey of this region has been done. Most CO maps in Taurus Radio observations of molecules in the Taurus clouds be- have been limited to selected areas, such as the dark filaments gan with Heiles’s (1968) detection of normal OH emission in (e.g., Baudry etal 1981; Myers 1982; Kleiner and Dickman a region of high extinction near R.A 4h38m, decl. 25°18', 1984; Murphy and Myers 1985; Duvert, Cemicharo, and afterward known as Heiles Cloud 2. In the same region, the 6 Baudry 1986). The available CO maps of the other clouds cm H2CO absorption line was discovered by Palmer et al cover only some active regions with high line intensities; see, (1969); Kutner (1973) observed this line at selected positions e.g., Sargent (1979) for the IC 348 cloud and Elmegreen and in the dark filament southwest of Heiles Cloud 2, now some- Elmegreen (1978) for the region near NGC 1499. The most times called Kutner’s cloud. More extensive H2CO observa- extensive previous CO study (Baran 1985) is severely under- tions there were later made by Heiles and Katz (1976) and sampled and suffers from a rather poor spectral resolution of Sume, Downes, and Wilson (1975), but the lines they ob- 2.6 km s-1. So far, the OH survey by Wouterloot and Habing served were too weak to establish a connection between (1985) gives the best picture of the large-scale distribution of Heiles Cloud 2 and Kutner’s cloud. In a few locations in the clouds with h > - 20°, but their map was limited to the Taurus (e.g., in the well-known source TMC-1, a core of regions where Baran had detected CO. Heiles Cloud 2), radio spectroscopy has provided evidence of A new SIS receiver with an extremely low noise tempera- a surprisingly complex chemistry (e.g., Broten et ai 1978; ture now used on the Columbia 1.2 m telescope allows us to 645 © American Astronomical Society • Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System .645U 646 UNGERECHTS AND THADDEUS .63. map CO rapidly with full sampling. This paper presents the frequency-switched components) of < 0.14 K, which under . results of a survey for which the angular resolution of the good weather conditions typically required 1 minute. telescope was reduced to 0?5, allowing the observations for A total of 3817 CO spectra were taken, covering - 750 the complete region to be finished within four months, while square degrees. All positions are on a regular coordinate grid 7ApJS. sufficient resolution was retained to see significant substruc- every 2m in right ascension and 0?5 in declination. No cosine 198 ture, e.g., the dark filaments in Taurus. Further, this angular correction was applied, so the step in right ascension is resolution is adequate for comparisons on a large scale of the somewhat less than 0?5 in true angle, decreasing slightly with m CO distribution with y-ray (COS B), Av, H I, and infrared dechnation. Sampling is on the full 2 X0?5 grid for most of (IRAS) surveys. the survey, but small areas in the northwestern and south- We describe the instrument and the observational methods western comers are undersampled, 4m X Io, since no emission in § II, then comment on the major features in our maps and was detected. The total area covered is outlined in Figure 1. on selected individual clouds in § III. The available distance No data were taken at declinations below 16°, a region estimates for the clouds and our best current estimates of extensively mapped by Maddalena etal. (1986) in the Orion- structure and mass are discussed in § IV. Appendix A ex- Monoceros survey, or within 4° of the Galactic plane to the plains the analysis of frequency-switched CO spectra, and northeast covered in the Columbia survey of the second more detailed descriptions of some individual clouds are Galactic quadrant (Gottlieb, Brock, and Thaddeus 1986). given in Appendix B. Most of the spectra in our survey are readily summarized because the structure of the lines is generally simple. We II. OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS consider a spectral feature to be a line if its peak intensity is greater than 0.3 K and its integrated intensity is greater than The observations were made in 1985 February-May in -1 New York City with the Columbia millimeter-wave telescope, 0.5 K km s ; if it is not a single strong channel, or spike; which has a full beamwidth at half-maximum of 8'7 at 115 and if it is not at the velocity expected for the telluric line. GHz, the frequency of the CO J = 1-0 transition. The spec- Four parameters were calculated for all positions where the trometer, a 256 channel, 250 kHz filter bank, provided a observed spectrum has at least one detected line: the peak line velocity resolution of 0.65 km s~1. The front end was a temperature TR, the integrated line intensity Wco = }TRdv, single-sideband SIS receiver (Pan 1984), with a receiver noise the equivalent width Ai;equ = Wco /TR, and the average veloc- temperature of typically < 90 K and a total system noise ity = jTR(v)vdv/Wco. The integrals are over the range temperature < 600 K. where TR > = 0.14 K. At positions with multiple lines In order to cover a large area quickly, the angular resolu- these parameters were calculated for each line separately as tion of the telescope was reduced to a 0?5x0?5 beam by well as for the total emission. We define two spectral peaks as stepping the telescope during each scan through a 4 X 4 square two distinct lines if they are separated by at least three raster of positions separated by —slightly less than the channels and a minimum lower than 60% of the lower and beamwidth.