SIMBA observations of the R Corona Australis molecular cloud ^*,**

¹ Astronomisches Institut der Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstrasse 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany
² Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
³ Max Planck Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁴ SEST, European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Santiago, Chile
⁵ IRAM, Avda. Divina Pastora 7, Nucleo Central, 18012 Granada, Spain
⁶ I. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Strasse 77, 50937 Köln, Germany

Corresponding author: R. Chini, chini@astro.rub.de

Received: 10 March 2003
Accepted: 16 July 2003

Abstract

We have mapped the R Corona Australis molecular cloud at 1.2 mm with SIMBA on SEST and detected 25 distinct dust emission peaks. While 7 of them coincide with positions of previously known young stars, 18 are seemingly not associated with any known stellar object. We discuss the nature of individual sources and conclude that there are at least four small concentrations of young objects located along the filamentary shaped cloud. A comparison with C¹⁸O data hints at the depletion of molecules in some of the cores. Our new results yield some conflicting arguments about whether star formation proceeds from north-west to south-east in the R Cr A cloud.