REVEALING A DETAILED MASS DISTRIBUTION OF A HIGH-DENSITY CORE MC27/L1521F IN TAURUS WITH ALMA

Abstract

We present the results of ALMA observations of dust continuum emission and molecular rotational lines toward a dense core MC27 (aka L1521F) in Taurus, which is considered to be at a very early stage of star formation. The detailed column density distributions on size scales from a few tens to ∼10,000 AU are revealed by combining the ALMA (12 m array + 7 m array) data with the published/unpublished single-dish data. The high angular resolution observations at 0.87 mm with a synthesized beam size of ∼0.″74 × 0.″32 reveal that a protostellar source, MMS-1, is not spatially resolved and lacks associated gas emission, while a starless high-density core, MMS-2, has substructures in both dust and molecular emission. The averaged radial column density distribution of the inner part of MC27/L1521F ( r ≲ 3000 AU) is ∼ , clearly flatter than that of the outer part, ∼ . The complex velocity/spatial structure obtained with previous ALMA observations is located inside the inner flatter region, which may reflect the dynamical status of the dense core.