Observational Signatures

of Wind-Driven Triggering

Christopher De Vries
Cal. State Stanislaus

Collaborators:
Gopal Narayanan (UMass Amherst)
Harri Vanhala (USRA/NCESSE)
Ron Snell (UMass Amherst)

211th AAS Meeting January 9, 2008

CSU Stanislaus
 Two Pronged Approach

? ?
Modeling Observations
 Two Pronged Approach

? ?
Modeling Observations

- Radiative Transfer 
 LVG Radiative Transfer
• Fast
• Accurate line shapes

We developed an LVG code which

• is designed for linear molecules.

• can create synthetic molecular spectral line observations

of 3-D models.
• is available at http://kepler.csustan.edu/
astrowiki/RadiativeTransfer.
 Monte Carlo, LVG, and LTE
HCO+ Excitation Temperature
14 −1
J=1-0 Vin=0.00 km s
12

10
Tex (K)

6 Monte Carlo
LVG
4 LTE

14
J=3-2
12

10
Tex (K)

4
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
r (cm) x1e+17
 Monte Carlo, LVG, and LTE
−1 −1 −1
Vin=0.0 km s Vin=0.05 km s Vin=0.12 km s
8

4
Tr (K)

0
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
V (km s−1)
 Model Schematic

O A B C

An atomic wind travels into a molecular cloud with a dense core.

The atomic wind creates a shock front which wraps around the
dense core. Over the interaction timescale (105 yr) the morpholo-
gies runs through the sequences above from left to right.
Sample Integrated Intensity Maps
Sample Integrated Intensity Maps
 Streaming Motions
d

s
θ
 Centroid Velocity

Triggered Collapse Unbound Cloud

150
150 7
100 100

HCO+ J=1-0 Centroid Velocity (km/s)

6
50 50
Dec Offset (asec)

Dec Offset (asec)

5
0 0

-50 -50 4

-100 -100
3

-150
-150
150 100 50 0 -50 -100 -150 -200 100 50 0 -50 -100 -150 -200 2
RA Offset (asec) RA Offset (asec)
 Molecular Virtual Observatory
LVG, though fast is not exact. We are currently developing a
next generation radiative transfer platform.

• includes support for asymmetric molecules

• includes Monte Carlo techniques to radiatively couple re-
gions within the simulation
• runs on a cluster of 24 dual processor machines

• includes single dish and interferometer backends for line

of sight integration
• includes support for multiple overlapping molecular line
profiles