Molecular gas in high-mass filament WB 673

Journal article, 2017

We studied the distribution of dense gas in a filamentary molecular cloud containing several dense clumps. The center of the filament is given by the dense clump WB 673. The clumps are high-mass and intermediate-mass star-forming regions. We observed CS (2–1), 13 CO (1–0), C 18 O (1–0), and methanol lines at 96 GHz toward WB 673 with the Onsala Space Observatory 20-m telescope. We found CS (2–1) emission in the inter-clump medium so the clumps are physically connected and the whole cloud is indeed a filament. Its total mass is 10 4 M and mass-to-length ratio is 360 M pc 1 from 13 CO (1–0) data. Mass-to-length ratio for the dense gas is 3.4 34 M pc 1 from CS (2–1) data. The PV-diagram of the filament is V-shaped. We estimated physical conditions in the molecular gas using methanol lines. Location of the filament on the sky between extended shells suggests that it could be a good example to test theoretical models of formation of the filaments via multiple compression of interstellar gas by supersonic waves.