Infall, Outflow, Rotation, and Turbulent Motions of Dense Gas within NGC 1333 IRAS 4

Abstract

Millimeter wavelength observations are presented of NGC 1333 IRAS 4, a group of highly embedded young stellar objects in Perseus, that reveal motions of infall, outflow, rotation, and turbulence in the dense gas around its two brightest continuum objects, 4A and 4B. These data have finest angular resolution of ~2" (0.0034 pc) and finest velocity resolution of 0.13 km s-1. Infall motions are seen from inverse P Cygni profiles observed in H2CO 312-211 toward both objects, but also in CS 3-2 and N2H+ 1-0 toward 4A, providing the least ambiguous evidence for such motions toward low-mass protostellar objects. Outflow motions are probed by bright line wings of H2CO 312-211 and CS 3-2 observed at positions offset from 4A and 4B, likely tracing dense cavity walls. Rotational motions of dense gas are traced by a systematic variation of the N2H+ line velocities, and such variations are found around 4A but not around 4B. Turbulent motions appear reduced with scale, given N2H+ line widths around both 4A and 4B that are narrower by factors of 2 or 3 than those seen from single-dish observations. Minimum observed line widths of ~0.2 km s-1 provide a new low, upper bound to the velocity dispersion of the parent core to IRAS 4 and demonstrate that turbulence within regions of clustered star formation can be reduced significantly. A third continuum object in the region, 4B', shows no detectable line emission in any of the observed molecular species.