arXiv subjects

Yuanzhen Xiong

Publications and source records attributed to Yuanzhen Xiong.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Dense Cores in the Vicinity of an HII Region

Massive stars strongly influence their surroundings through radiative and mechanical feedback, but its effects on dense gas structures at sub-pc scales remain poorly constrained. We investigate how feedback from a newly formed massive star affects dense cores in the filamentary molecular cloud IRAS 18530+0215. We analyze ALMA Band 6 observations of 1.3 mm dust continuum and DCN, N$_2$D$^+$, and $^{13}$CS line emission, together with VLA K-band continuum and NH$_3$ observations. Dense cores are identified with astrodendro, and their temperatures, masses, velocity dispersions, and virial parameters are derived. The dynamical state of the ultra-compact H II region is examined through energy and pressure estimates. The H II region has a radius of $\sim$0.1 pc and an expansion velocity of $\sim$2.5 km s$^{-1}$, corresponding to a shell dynamical age of $\sim$0.06 Myr. DCN and $^{13}$CS cores are concentrated near the H II region, whereas N$_2$D$^+$ cores preferentially lie farther away. Core temperatures and velocity dispersions decrease with projected distance from the H II region. Virial parameters increase within the inner $\sim$0.3 pc but decline sharply beyond this scale, while core masses show no significant trend with distance. Strong star formation signatures are found at $\sim$0.2 pc, whereas more distant regions still host quiescent, cold dense cores. The compact H II region appears trapped or choked within $\sim$0.1 pc, while its feedback extends to at least $\sim$0.3 pc. Within this region, feedback enhances core velocity dispersions, gas temperatures, and virial parameters, with no evidence that it promotes the formation of more massive dense cores.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2026

Trace the Self-Gravitating Gas Using CO Isotopologues

Recent studies have shown that the star formation rate (SFR) correlates tightly and linearly with the mass of gravitationally bound gas, which can be delineated from the power-law tail of the column-density probability distribution function ($N$-PDF) derived from dust emission observations. This relationship holds across four orders of magnitude within the Milky Way--spanning low-mass to high-mass star-forming regions and encompassing the extreme environment of the Central Molecular Zone. Building on this framework, we present a new approach for estimating the mass of gravitationally bound gas in molecular clouds using multi-line CO isotopologue observations. Our sample includes 16 molecular clouds with robust detections in $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O $J$ = 1-0, spanning both massive inner Galaxy clouds and nearby star-forming regions. We find that the $N$-PDFs derived from combined CO isotopologue data recover the characteristic log-normal plus power-law profiles seen in dust-based studies. The mass and spatial distribution of the self-gravitating structures estimated from both dust-based and CO-based methods agree well throughout the sample. This indicates that the CO isotopologue combination can robustly trace the self-gravitating component via the $N$-PDF method and provides a reliable, scalable, and velocity-resolved alternative to dust emission for identifying the star-forming gas in molecular clouds.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2026

Spatially resolved thermal dust emission in the L1157 outflow reveals grain-driven molecular enrichment

Protostellar outflow shocks reshape local dust properties and molecular chemistry. The L1157 outflow is an archetypal chemically rich shocked region, but the thermal dust associated with its successive shocks has remained unresolved because molecular-line contamination obscures the broadband continuum. We obtained new James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (825--906 $μ$m) spectral-line observations and Submillimeter Array (1.1--1.4 mm) continuum observations toward L1157 B0-B1-B2, probing spatial scales from 0.4 pc to 1200 au. After removing molecular-line contamination on a pixel-by-pixel basis, we derived the dust temperature, column density, and dust opacity index from continuum data spanning 70 $μ$m to 1.3 mm. The line-corrected continuum maps reveal the dust distribution across successive shocks. The dust opacity index ($β\approx1.8$--2.3) indicates that grains have not grown to millimeter sizes throughout the shocked regions. Combined with previous $\rm NH_3$ observations, we find that the dust emission resolves into compact clumps along the precessing jet, whereas gaseous $\rm NH_3$ peaks at the shock fronts, reaching abundances of $\sim10^{-5}$ relative to $\rm H_2$, even where the 0.85 and 1.3 mm dust emission is detected at only 3--5$σ$. Our newly developed physicochemical shock model shows that $\rm NH_3$ forms predominantly on grain surfaces and is released by shock-induced sputtering, with the highest abundances occurring where post-shock re-adsorption remains inefficient. These results establish spatially resolved dust continuum imaging as a direct observational probe of grain evolution and provide new observational constraints on dust-gas interactions in protostellar shocks.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Tails of Gravity: Persistence of Star Formation in the CMZ Environment

We characterize star-forming gas in six molecular clouds (Sgr B1-off, Sgr B2, Sgr C, the 20 km s$^{-1}$ and 50 km s$^{-1}$ molecular clouds, and the Brick) in the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ), and compare their star-forming activities with those in molecular clouds outside the CMZ. Using multi-band continuum observations taken from ${\it Planck}$, ${\it Herschel}$, JCMT/SCUBA-2, and CSO/SHARC2, we derived 8.5" resolution column density maps for the CMZ clouds and evaluated the column density probability distribution functions (N-PDFs). With the archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 1.3 mm dust continuum data, we further evaluated the mass of the most massive cores ($M_{\rm core}^{\rm ma x}$). We find that the N-PDFs of four of the selected CMZ clouds are well described by a piecewise log-normal + power-law function, while the N-PDFs of the remaining two can be approximated by log-normal functions. In the first four targets, the masses in the power-law component ($M_{\rm gas}^{\rm bound}$), $M_{\rm core}^{\rm max}$, and star formation rate (SFR) are correlated. These correlations are very similar to those derived from low-mass clouds in the Solar neighborhood and massive star-forming regions on the Galactic disk. These findings lead to our key hypotheses: (1) In the extreme environment of the CMZ, the power-law component in the N-PDF also represents self-gravitationally bound gas structures, and (2) evolution and star-forming activities of self-gravitationally bound gas structures may be self-regulated, insensitive to the exterior environment on $\gtrsim$5-10 pc scales.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Deep Andromeda JCMT-SCUBA2 Observations. The Submillimeter Maps and Giant Molecular Clouds

We have carried out unprecedentedly deep, nearly confusion-limited JCMT-SCUBA2 mapping observations on the nearest spiral galaxy, M31 (Andromeda). The 850 $μ$m image with a $\sim$50 pc resolution yields a comprehensive catalog of 383 giant molecular clouds (GMCs) that are associated with the spiral arms. In addition, it unveiled a population of 189 compact inter-arm GMCs in M31, which are mostly unresolved or marginally resolved. The masses of all these GMCs are in the range of 2$\times$10$^4$ -- 6$\times$10$^6$ $M_{\odot}$; the sizes are in the range of 30--130 pc. They follow a mass-size correlation, $M$ $\propto$ $R_{c}$$^{2.5}$. The inter-arm GMCs are systematically less massive, more diffuse, colder, and have lower star-forming efficiency (SFE) than on-arm GMCs. Moreover, within individual spatially resolved on-arm and off-arm M31 GMCs, the SFE is considerably lower than the SFE in molecular clouds in main sequence and green valley galaxies. Follow-up investigations on M31 GMCs may provide clues for how star formation may be quenched in galactic environments. Finally, we reconstrained the dust opacity spectral index $β$ in the M31 galaxy by combining our new JCMT observations with archival Herschel and Planck data and found that the radial variation of $β$ may not be as large as was proposed by previous studies.

astro-ph.GA↗