The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: the effect of molecular contamination in SCUBA-2 observations of Orion A

Coudé, S., Bastien, P., Kirk, H., Johnstone, D., Drabek-Maunder, Emily ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3476-2260, Graves, S., Hatchell, J., Chapin, E. L., Gibb, A. G. and Matthews, B. 2016. The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: the effect of molecular contamination in SCUBA-2 observations of Orion A. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 457 (2) , pp. 2139-2150. 10.1093/mnras/stv3009

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Thermal emission from cold dust grains in giant molecular clouds can be used to probe the physical properties, such as density, temperature and emissivity in star-forming regions. We present the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA-2) shared-risk observations at 450 and 850 μm of the Orion A molecular cloud complex taken at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). Previous studies showed that molecular emission lines can contribute significantly to the measured fluxes in those continuum bands. We use the Heterodyne Array Receiver Programme 12CO J = 3−2 integrated intensity map for Orion A in order to evaluate the molecular line contamination and its effects on the SCUBA-2 maps. With the corrected fluxes, we have obtained a new spectral index α map for the thermal emission of dust in the well-known integral-shaped filament. Furthermore, we compare a sample of 33 sources, selected over the Orion A molecular cloud complex for their high 12CO J = 3−2 line contamination, to 27 previously identified clumps in OMC 4. This allows us to quantify the effect of line contamination on the ratio of 850–450 μm flux densities and how it modifies the deduced spectral index of emissivity β for the dust grains. We also show that at least one Spitzer-identified protostellar core in OMC 5 has a 12CO J = 3−2 contamination level of 16 per cent. Furthermore, we find the strongest contamination level (44 per cent) towards a young star with disc near OMC 2. This work is part of the JCMT Gould Belt Legacy Survey.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of Acceptance:	24 December 2015
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2022 09:42
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/105764

Citation Data

Cited 16 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item