Radial column density profiles of selected Plummer profile filaments (solid lines) and Bonnor-Ebert spheres (dashed lines). a) Two filaments with R_flat = 0.1 pc and p = 2 and a central density of ρ_c = 10³ cm^-3 or ρ_c = 5 × 10³ cm^-3, and a Bonner-Ebert sphere with a mass of 6.0 M_⊙ that in both cases corresponds to the filament mass within one Jeans length. b) Filaments with a central density ρ_c = 10³ cm^-3 with values p/R_flat as indicated in the figure. The dashed lines are column density profiles for Bonnor-Ebert spheres with mass equal to the mass of the filaments within a distance of one Jeans length.