Scientific Highlights with the SMA

85 pointing wide-field image of Orion molecular cloud -3

The SMA also has a capability of wide-field imaging. The technique of multi-points mosaicking allows us to cover the area larger than the field of view of the SMA. The 0.85 mm continuum image of OMC3, which is a filamentary molecular cloud located to the north of Orion M42 was obtained by observing 85 pointings. The image reveals that the filament consists of a chain of clumps with a semi-regular interval of 0.05 pc. This separation is roughly consistent with the local Jeans length, suggesting that observed star-forming cores may be formed via thermal fragmentation process within the filaments. The detected clumps are spatially resolved, and are likely to harbor protostars.

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The 0.85 mm continuum images obtained with the SMA (color) and with the JCMT/SCUBA (contours referred from Johnstone & Bally 1999). Open circles show the position of infrared sources (candidates of young stellar objects) identified by Pererson & Megeath (2008). Zoom in images of SMA continuum results are shown in each panel (Takahashi et al. 2012 in prep.).