Gas Kinematics of a Nascent Hub-Filament System in High-Mass Star Formation
The study of how dense molecular gas flows within a hub-filament system, a network of interstellar filaments meeting at a central hub, during the earliest phase of high-mass star formation before stellar feedback disrupts it. Using position-position-velocity data from a dense-gas tracer, velocity gradients and gravity vectors along the filaments are measured to test whether gravity drives mass inflow toward the hub, and to interpret the funnel-shaped kinematic morphology in terms of subfilaments and transverse gas flows.
2501.00506
This Letter uses ALMA observations of the dense-gas tracer N2H+(1-0) to confirm and characterize a small-scale hub-filament system, G11P1-HFS (extent below 0.6 pc), surrounding the high-mass protosta…