WFC3 Observations of VeLLOs and the Youngest Star Forming Environments

Details WFC3 Observations of VeLLOs and the Youngest Star Forming Environments WFC3 Observations of VeLLOs and the Youngest Star Forming Environments

Jul 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008hst..prop11618h&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #11618. Cycle 17

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The Cores-to-Disks Spitzer Legacy team has discovered a number of extremely low luminosity sources embedded deep within nearby {< 300 pc} cores previously thought to be starless. With substellar masses, these low luminosity sources represent either the youngest low-mass protostars yet detected or the first embedded brown dwarfs. In either case, they represent a new observed class of sources referred to as VeLLOs {Very Low Luminosity Objects}. We propose WFC3 F160W observations of a small sample of these sources, to be combined with deep ground-based observations at Ks, to address a broad set of issues concerning VeLLOs and the environments within which they are forming. First, the morphology of their outflow cavities will be traced, yielding estimates of the inclinations and opening angles of the cavities and the evolutionary stages of the VeLLOs. Second, our observations will reveal background stars seen through the densest regions of cores harboring these VeLLOs. The color-excesses of the background stars will yield the highest angular resolution extinction maps necessary to directly probe the inner density structure of these cores, found very soon after the onset of collapse, which would constrain the initial conditions of collapse within these isolated environments. In addition, we will construct similar maps of the dense pre-protostellar core L694-2 and the protostellar core B335. These maps will provide a snapshot of the evolution of the inner density structure of a core prior to low-mass star formation and soon thereafter, for comparison with the inner density structure of cores that have formed VeLLOs. Finally, these extinction maps will enable us to determine the core "centers", or positions of peak column densities. Comparison of these centers with the positions of the VeLLOs may yield insight regarding potential differences between the formation of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs.;

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