Tracing grain growth in the forming prestellar core L1506C with 3D modeling of Herschel, IRAM, and CFHT observations

Abstract

In the early phases of star formation, properties of prestellar cores are commonly inferred from observations of thermal dust emission and thus depend on dust properties, which must be carefully characterized. Our target, L1506C, is part of the filament L1506 in the Taurus molecular cloud. The spectral energy distributions over the whole spectral range (from 160 μm to 2 mm), built from Herschel PACS and SPIRE and IRAM-NIKA2 data, have been fitted with a modified blackbody. These data were also modelled using the 3D radiative transfer code SOC and the latest THEMIS 2 dust model using extinction observations from WIRCam at CFHT and from Spitzer as additional constraints. The MBB modeling reveals that L1506C is fragmented into two low density cores with masses smaller than their Jeans masses. The dust color temperature and the emissivity spectral index show clear anti-correlation and change in grain properties. Grains more evolved than the diffuse interstellar medium are needed to model the densest part showing that grain growth already occurs at very early stage of star formation, even before the onset of gravitational collapse.