Line Profiles of Cores within Clusters: I. The Anatomy of a Filament

Abstract

Observations are revealing the ubiquity of filamentary structures in molecular clouds. As cores are often embedded in filaments, it is important to understand how line profiles from such systems differ from those of isolated cores. We perform radiative transfer calculations on a hydrodynamic simulation of a molecular cloud in order to model line emission from collapsing cores embedded in filaments. We model two optically thick lines, CS(2-1) and HCN(1-0), and one optically thin line, N2H+(1-0), from three embedded cores. In the hydrodynamic simulation, gas self-gravity, turbulence, and bulk flows create filamentary regions within which cores form. Though the filaments have large dispersions, the N2H+(1-0) lines indicate subsonic velocities within the cores. We find that the observed optically thick line profiles of CS(2-1) and HCN(1-0) vary drastically with viewing angle. In over 50% of viewing angles, there is no sign of a blue asymmetry, an idealised signature of infall motions in an isolated spherical collapsing core. Profiles which primarily trace the cores, with little contribution from the surrounding filament, are characterised by a systematically higher HCN(1-0) peak intensity. The N2H+(1-0) lines do not follow this trend. We demonstrate that red asymmetric profiles are also feasible in the optically thick lines, due to emission from the filament or one-sided accretion flows onto the core. We conclude that embedded cores may frequently undergo collapse without showing a blue asymmetric profile, and that observational surveys including filamentary regions may underestimate the number of collapsing cores if based solely on profile shapes of optically thick lines.