Issue |
A&A
Volume 699, July 2025
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A355 | |
Number of page(s) | 10 | |
Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202554080 | |
Published online | 21 July 2025 |
High-resolution APEX/LAsMA 12CO and 13CO (3-2) observation of the G333 giant molecular cloud complex
III. Decomposition of molecular clouds into multi-scale hub-filament structures
1
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie,
Auf dem Hügel 69,
53121
Bonn,
Germany
2
Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, University of Kent,
Canterbury
CT2 7NH,
UK
3
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
80 Nandan Road,
Shanghai
200030,
PR China
4
Department of Physics, PO Box 64, 00014 University of Helsinki,
Finland
★ Corresponding author: jwzhou@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Received:
8
February
2025
Accepted:
18
June
2025
We decomposed the G333 complex and the G331 giant molecular cloud into multi-scale hub-filament systems (HFs) using the highresolution 13CO (3-2) data from LAsMA observations. We employed the filfinder algorithm to identify and characterize filaments within HFs. Compared with non-HFs, HFs have a significantly higher density contrast, higher masses, and lower virial ratios. Velocity gradient measurements around intensity peaks provide evidence of gas inflow within these structures. There may be an evolutionary sequence from non-HFs to HFs. There is currently no distinct gravitational focusing process for non-HFs that would result in a significant density contrast. The density contrast can effectively measure the extent of gravitational collapse and the strength of the gravitational center of the structure, which definitively shape the hub-filament morphology. Based on the results from this study and the kinematic evidence from our previous studies, we suggest that molecular clouds are network structures formed by the gravitational coupling of multi-scale hub-filament structures. The knots in the networks are the hubs: they are the local gravitational centers and the main star-forming sites. Clumps in molecular clouds are equivalent to the hubs. The network structure of molecular clouds can naturally explain why feedback from protoclusters does not significantly change the kinematic properties of the surrounding embedded dense gas structures, as concluded in our previous studies.
Key words: stars: formation / ISM: clouds / ISM: kinematics and dynamics / ISM: structure
© The Authors 2025
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
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