A herschel study of the properties of starless cores in the Polaris Flare dark cloud region using PACS and SPIRE

Abstract

The Polaris Flare cloud region contains a great deal of extended emission. It is at high declination and high Galactic latitude. It was previously seen strongly in IRAS Cirrus emission at 100 microns. We have detected it with both PACS and SPIRE on Herschel. We see filamentary and low-level structure. We identify the five densest cores within this structure. We present the results of a temperature, mass and density analysis of these cores. We compare their observed masses to their virial masses, and see that in all cases the observed masses lie close to the lower end of the range of estimated virial masses. Therefore, we cannot say whether they are gravitationally bound prestellar cores. Nevertheless, these are the best candidates to be potential prestellar cores in the Polaris cloud region. © 2010 ESO.