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# Constraints on star formation theories from the Serpens molecular cloud and protocluster

## 1 Introduction

It is now well established that a substantial fraction of the young pre-main sequence stars in molecular clouds are found in compact groups (clusters) rather than being uniformly distributed throughout the clouds (e.g. Gomez et al. Gea93 (1993); Testi et al. TPN99 (1999); Carpenter C00 (2000)). It is thus clear that the formation and early evolution of stellar clusters hold the key for the understanding of the galactic disk stellar population, such as the distribution of stellar masses at birth, or initial mass function (IMF), as well as the kinematical and multiplicity properties (Clarke et al. CBH00 (2000); Kroupa K95 (1995); Kroupa et al. Kea01 (2001)). While there is a general consensus that the latter two properties are linked to the clusters dynamical evolution, the nature of the IMF is still debated. Observations show that the emergent mass distribution of young stellar clusters is consistent with the field stars IMF (Palla & Stahler PS99 (1999); Hillenbrand & Carpenter HC00 (2000); Meyer et al. Mea00 (2000)), implying that the stellar mass distribution must be linked with the cluster formation process itself. Three main classes of models have been considered: those which link the final stellar masses to (i) the structure or fragmentation of the parent molecular cloud (e.g. Elmegreen E97 (1997); Myers M00 (2000); Padoan & Nordlund PN01 (2002)); or (ii) the feedback of the protostellar accretion process (Adams & Fatuzzo AF96 (1996)); or, finally, (iii) competitive accretion between already formed (proto–)stars in clusters (Bonnell et al. Bea97 (1997)Bea01 (2001)).

The progressive improvement in millimeter wavelength techniques, in particular the development of bolometer arrays for large single dish telescopes and the upgrade of millimeter wave arrays, have provided a new wealth of observational data to constrain theories (André & Motte AM00 (2000); Testi & Sargent TS00 (2000)). Millimeter continuum surveys of the cluster forming clouds in Serpens (Testi & Sargent TS98 (1998), hereafter TS98), $`\rho `$–Oph (Motte et al. MAN98 (1998); Johstone et al. Jea00 (2000)), NGC 1333 (Sandell & Knee SK01 (2001)), and Orion B (Johnstone et al. Jea01 (2001); Motte et al. Mea01 (2001)) have shown that the mass distribution of the prestellar cores, progenitors of individual stellar systems, is consistent with the field stars IMF and thus significantly steeper that the mass function of the larger gaseous clumps in molecular clouds (e.g. Williams et al. WBM00 (2000)). These observations suggest that the self-similarity of molecular clouds breaks down at the cores level, and the fragmentation or the small-scale structure of the clouds is the likely mechanism responsible for the stellar IMF.

In a first attempt to link the small-scale structure of the prestellar cores and young stellar objects in clusters with the kinematics and large-scale distribution of the molecular gas, Testi et al. (tsoo00 (2000); hereafter TSOO) combined the high resolution 3 mm continuum survey of TS98 with new interferometric and single dish molecular line surveys of the Serpens core. The high resolution CS(2–1) observations showed high velocity molecular gas associated with outflows emanating from several of the protocluster members, while the single dish N2H+(1–0) revealed the presence of two main gaseous clumps, well separated in velocity, in which the TS98 sources are embedded. The combination of the new high and low resolution millimeter-wave data with previously published observations showed that the protocluster is structured in sub-clusters, each internally coherent, well separated both spatially and kinematically. The star formation efficiency and proto-stellar density within each core is a factor of $``$10 higher than the average values. The fact that the molecular gas within each sub-cluster is kinematically coherent suggests that clusters are assembled through fragmentation of the molecular clump in coherent sub-clumps which produce independent sub-clusters (TSOO). It is not clear, however, whether the sub-clusters in Serpens will eventually merge into a final cluster, such as other young clusters (e.g. the Orion Nebula Cluster) which show little evidence for sub-structures (Clarke et al. CBH00 (2000)).

Similar results on the spatial segregation of pre-stellar cores have also been found in the $`\rho `$-Oph star forming region (Johstone et al. Jea00 (2000)), but unfortunately the essential kinematical information is missing in this region. In both regions, the prestellar cores and protostars densities are too low for dynamical interactions to be efficient over the timescale in which the bulk of the mass of the final stars is assembled. Dynamical interaction and competitive accretion can possibly play a role for the final tuning of stellar masses but cannot play a major role in determining the global shape of the stellar IMF in these regions. Note however that both these regions are at least an order of magnitude less dense than the typical clusters associated with massive stars (such as the Orion Nebula Cluster).

Given for granted that, at least in Serpens and $`\rho `$-Oph, the stellar IMF appears to be linked to the individual small-scale cloud fragments, each progenitor of a single stellar system, the question remains on how the fragmentation and collapse processes occur. There are currently two opposite views of these processes: a “slow” and a “fast” mode. In the first mode molecular clouds may contract as a whole in a slow fashion evolving through a series of quasi-equilibrium conditions; star formation is triggered in localized regions of the cloud when the density exceeds the threshold for gravitational collapse. Star formation in the cloud as a whole may be regulated by external agents, such as in the photoionization-regulated view of McKee (MK89 (1989)), or it may progressively accelerate until the feedback of newly formed stars disperse the molecular material, halting star formation (Palla & Stahler PS00 (2000)). In the “fast” mode, since turbulence is expected to decay on very short timescales within molecular clouds (Mac Low McL99 (1999)), there is no force to balance the clouds against gravitational collapse and star formation occurs globally on a few free-fall times (Elmegreen E00 (2000); Hartmann et al. Hea01 (2001)). From the observational point of view, the problem can be approached by studying the large-scale kinematical and physical conditions in star forming molecular clouds and compare them with position, mass and age distributions of forming stars (Palla & Stahler PS00 (2000)).

The Serpens cloud core appears to be an ideal place to test the predictions of the various models. At a distance of $``$310 pc (de Lara et al. dL91 (1991)), the Serpens cloud core and protocluster have been the subject of numerous detailed observational studies in recent years, at infrared and (sub-)millimeter wavelengths. Among the most recent are: Davis et al. dav99 (1999); Giovannetti et al. Gea98 (1998); Hodapp H99 (1999); Hogerheijde et al. Hea99 (1999); Kaas K99 (1999); Kaas & Bontemps KB01 (2001); McMullin et al. mcm94 (1994); mcm00 (2000); Williams & Myers WM99 (1999); WM00 (2000); in addition to TS98 and TSOO. The reasons for these numerous observational efforts lie in its compactness, richness and relative proximity to the Sun, which make it possible to obtain and combine high resolution observations of the relatively large number of (proto-)stellar sources within the (proto-)cluster and large-scale observations in various tracers of the entire cloud core. Regions further away from the Sun cannot be adequately resolved with single dish telescopes and cannot be observed at the required sensitivity with current millimeter arrays, whereas nearby regions require a substantially larger observing time to be fully mapped.

Most of the previous single dish millimeter studies of the large-scale structure of the molecular clump, within which the (proto-)cluster is embedded, focused either on the study of molecular outflows by means of optically thick CO(2–1) observations (Davis et al. dav99 (1999)), or on the chemistry (McMullin et al. mcm94 (1994); mcm00 (2000)), or presented partial maps of the cloud core (White, Casali & Eiroa Wea95 (1995)). In this paper we complement these and our previous high resolution studies (TS98 and TSOO) with observations of the molecular clump large-scale structure using complete maps in moderately optically thick (13CO(1–0) and CS(2–1)) and optically thin tracers (C18O(1–0), C34S(2–1), and N2H+(1–0)), taking advantage of the 16-element focal plane array operating at a wavelength of 3mm at the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory111The Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory is operated with support from the National Science Foundation and with permission of the Metropolitan District Commission (FCRAO). These new observations are used to derive refined values of the physical parameters of the cloud, and are combined with previous observations to study the kinematical and fragmentation properties of the cloud core.

The paper is organized as follows: in Sect. 2 and 3 we describe the new observations, the morphology of the Serpens cloud in the observed tracers and derive the physical conditions of the molecular gas; in Sect. 4 we discuss the cloud kinematical and fragmentation properties; finally, in Sect. 5 we summarize the main results of this study, and we discuss the implications for cluster formation and evolution theories.

## 2 Observations

The single dish observations of the Serpens cloud core were carried out in March, October and November 1999 with the 13.7-m telescope of the FCRAO located in New Salem (U.S.A.), using the new SEQUOIA 32 element focal plane array, although for the present observations only 16 pixels were actually used. The observed lines and their rest frequencies are listed in Table 1. The maps were centered about the position $`\alpha =18^\mathrm{h}27^\mathrm{m}20^\mathrm{s}`$ and $`\delta =1^{}12^{}30^{\prime \prime }`$ (B1950.0), and the FWHM of the FCRAO telescope varied from about $`46^{\prime \prime }`$ to about $`53^{\prime \prime }`$. The front-end receivers employed low noise InP MMIC-based amplifiers resulting in a mean receiver temperature of 70 K (SSB) and system temperatures typically in the range $`160250`$ K. Our spectrometer was an autocorrelator with 24 KHz (0.077 km s-1) spectral resolution and 20 MHz bandwidth.

The integration times used for the single-scan were typically 5 to 25 minutes in frequency switching mode, using a frequency throw of 8 MHz. The maps were carried out using 1-beam sampling and the sizes of the covered regions in the different lines are also listed in Table 1. The main beam efficiency used to convert the antenna temperature, $`T_\mathrm{A}^{}`$, to main beam brightness temperature is $`\eta _{\mathrm{mb}}=0.55`$. The final achieved sensitivities in the $`T_\mathrm{A}^{}`$ scale varied from about 0.05 K for C34S to about 0.19 K for 13CO.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Morphology of the Serpens region

#### 3.1.1 13CO(1–0) and C18O(1–0)

We performed wide-field imaging of the 13CO and C18O(1–0) emission towards the Serpens region to understand the relation of the global distribution of the molecular gas with the denser gas in the cloud cores. The optically thicker 13CO(1–0) line emission tends to pick up the more diffuse ambient gas, whereas the thinner transition of C18O(1–0) shows the distribution of the gas inside the Serpens cloud.

The 13CO(1–0), C18O(1–0) and N2H+(1–0) emission integrated over the velocity interval 4.0 to 12.0 km s-1, shown in Fig. 1, trace the distribution of the column density in the Serpens cloud (see also Sect.3.4.1). The 13CO emission is extended and encompasses both the NW and SE clusters of submillimeter continuum sources, with a peak of emission near the position of SMM4. We clearly detect 13CO(1–0) at the position of SMM1, where the BIMA observations of McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)) did not detect any emission. Compared to the C18O(1–0) map of McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)) our C18O integrated intensity map better shows the clear demarcation between the NW and SE sub-clusters, which are also separated in velocity (see Sect. 3.3 and TSOO).

The NW clump is clearly surrounding all continuum sources: S68N (McMullin et al. mcm94 (1994)) and SMM1 in particular (also seen at the position of the N2H+ core C) are very close to two C18O emission peaks. The SE cluster of submillimeter continuum sources lies essentially in the region between the two C18O peaks, and is aligned with the C18O lower surface brightness region extending to the NE. On the other hand, sources SMM2 and SMM11 are embedded in the SE gas clump, and the emission is elongated in the NS direction along the “spur”, an extended, lower surface brightness narrow region, stretching from the NW to SE clumps and continuing beyond these, observed by TSOO. As observed by McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)), in the case of the C18O emission there is a lack of correspondence with the submillimeter peaks, especially in the SE sub-clump. However, the C18O and submillimeter dust continuum emission both trace the large-scale distribution of column density, as shown in Fig. 2. A similar structure to C18O can be seen in N2H+ (TSOO), although the peaks of emission show a different position in the SE clump.

Fig. 2 shows that the Spur emission has a striking correspondence with the 850 $`\mu `$m continuum emission of Davis et al. (dav99 (1999)) extending southward from SMM11. Another dust lane is extending roughly NE from SMM3 and coincides quite well with a “bulge” of higher velocity gas visible in both the 13CO and C18O centroid velocity maps (Fig. 8). Here, as suggested by Davis et al. (dav99 (1999)), the high-velocity gas and dust continuum emission are maybe showing the action of a wind powered by the SMM 2/3/4 group.

#### 3.1.2 CS(2–1) and C34S(2–1)

To determine the distribution of the denser gas in Serpens we obtained integrated intensity maps of the CS and C34S(2–1) emission (see also Sect.3.4). The maps are presented in Fig. 3, where CS and C34S(2–1) show several condensations and the two main clumps, NW and SE. A detailed comparison with the N2H+ and C18O unveils several important differences. TSOO showed that the N2H+ map follows the spatial distribution of the submillimeter sources in both the NW and SE sub-clumps much more closely than the other molecular tracers such as C32S and CH3OH. This is confirmed by our new single dish C32S and C34S maps, showing that the CS distribution resembles much more closely that of other shock tracers, such as H2CO (McMullin et al. mcm00 (2000)), in agreement with what found by TSOO.

### 3.2 Line profiles

TSOO mapped the NW and SE clumps of the Serpens region in the N2H+(1–0) transition and found four main cores of emission, A, B spatially associated with the SMM3/4 sources in the SE clump, and C, D associated with SMM1/S68N in the NW region. As mentioned earlier, they also identified an extended, lower surface brightness Spur, stretching from the NW to SE clumps. Spectra of N2H+ and also of CS, C34S and C18O at the emission peaks of these regions are presented in Figs. 4 to 6. Our maps of the Serpens region obtained using CS, C34S and C18O complement the N2H+ observations of TSOO and show some new features. In particular, the Spur is detected in all molecular tracers observed by us and its emission only covers a narrow ($`0.40.5`$ km s-1) velocity range. The N2H+(1–0) emission is mostly optically thin, except at the emission peaks in the NW clump where $`\tau (\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)\begin{array}{c}<\\ \end{array}1`$.

#### 3.2.1 13CO(1–0) and C18O(1–0)

The 13CO spectra in the NW clump appear to be self-absorbed (see Fig. 5), as the dip is at about the same velocity as that of the CS spectra ($`8.6`$ km s-1) and is aligned with the C34S peak. The C18O spectra appear to have a Gaussian profile in the NW clump and are mostly optically thin. In this clump the peak of the C18O line is generally well aligned with those of C34S and N2H+ and traces the dip of the 13CO and CS spectra (see Figs. 5 and 6).

In the SE clump the line shape of 13CO tends to be non-Gaussian, especially at offsets $`\delta <100^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`\alpha >20^{\prime \prime }`$ from the map center. As for the N2H+ line shape, the C18O non-Gaussian profile is due to the presence in the beam of several velocity components (cores “A”, “B” and the “Spur” of TSOO), as shown in Fig. 4 where the two N2H+ peaks are nicely aligned with those of C18O. It is interesting to note that the ratio of 13CO to C18O emission is lower in the Spur than at the other positions. For example at the position and velocity of core A, $`(133,177)`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=7.15`$ km s-1, the 13CO to C18O intensity ratio is about 3, whereas at the velocity of the Spur this ratio decreases to about 2.

#### 3.2.2 CS(2–1) and C34S(2–1)

Most of CS spectra in the NW clump (see Fig. 5) are self-absorbed and are optically thick, as confirmed by the presence of the C34S emission peaks at the dip of the CS spectra (see also Williams and Myers WM99 (1999)). The differences in the profiles between the two isotopomers are mainly due to their different optical depths: the C34S lines are optically thin and single-peaked whereas the CS spectra generally present two peaks. The asymmetries in the self-absorbed CS spectra have been interpreted by Williams and Myers (WM99 (1999)) as the signpost of a large-scale contraction of the gas around the clusters. The blue asymmetric line profile of CS is visible in both the NW and SE clumps, and by comparing CS and C34S we will show later that in these regions the centroid velocity of the optically thicker isotopomer is lower (bluer) than its rarer and optically thin counterpart.

The CS spectra show line wings due to outflows from several cluster sources, such as S68N and SMM1 in the NW clump, and SMM3 and SMM4 in the SE clump. The CS spectra in the Spur are self-absorbed, as shown in Fig. 6, and both the N2H+ and C18O emission peaks are aligned with the dip of the CS spectra.

### 3.3 Kinematics of the Serpens region

The analysis of the gas kinematics in the Serpens region is complicated by the presence of several velocity fields that may include infall, rotation, turbulence and outflow motions. In particular, the presence of several known outflows may render the unambiguous detection of either rotation or infall very difficult. In this work we did not attempt to detect infall motions around some of the specific submillimeter sources, but we were instead interested in the global motions of the cloud and within the cloud. The molecular tracers used also reflect this goal: their excitation conditions make 13CO and C18O(1–0) less prone to contamination by outflows. Likewise, the two optically thin tracers C34S(2–1) and N2H+(1–0) are not affected by the presence of outflows. However, the CS(2–1) emission is known to be contaminated in the presence of strong outflows (see TSOO and refrences therein) and indeed we detect line wings in the CS lines (see Sect. 3.2.2).

We present the velocity information in four different graphical forms designed to emphasize different kinematical properties of the gas: (i) line core, red and blue wing maps to show large-scale velocity structures; (ii) centroid velocity maps, to show small velocity trends of the cloud bulk emission; (iii) normalized centroid velocity difference between an optically thick and a thin tracer, to show systematic differences such as infall motions; (iv) line width maps, to show the velocity dispersion accross the region for the various tracers.

#### 3.3.1 Line core and line wings maps

To determine the velocity distribution of the ambient gas in Serpens we made integrated intensity maps of the blueshifted ($`5.07.3`$ km s-1), line core ($`7.38.4`$ km s-1) and redshifted ($`8.412.4`$ km s-1) emission of 13CO and C18O(1–0). The maps are shown in Fig. 7 where the 13CO and C18O emission is clearly separated and occupies mainly the half-plane to the East in the blueshifted channel, whereas the emission is mostly concentrated in the half-plane to the West in the redshifted channel (see also Fig. 8). In particular, 13CO shows a very different distribution from that of CO(1–0) (McMullin et al. mcm94 (1994)) and (2–1) (Davis et al. dav99 (1999)). In fact, while the CO emission is affected by the high-velocity gas radiated from the submillimeter sources, 13CO is less affected by molecular ouflows and thus can better show the kinematics of the large-scale gas. In the central velocity map of C18O the Spur is clearly visible as a gas filament extending southward from the SE cluster of submillimeter sources.

The maps in Fig. 7 show emission from the SE and NW sub-clusters at all velocities, although the C34S emission is weak in the $`5.07.3`$ km s-1velocity interval and is mostly concentrated in the SE clump. We also note that the C18O(1–0) emission from the NW clump is concentrated in the line core and especially in the redshifted channel. The morphology shown by the channel maps of the two CO isotopomers and of the density sensitive tracers is clearly different. The 13CO and C18O(1–0) line emission show a velocity gradient roughly E to W whereas CS(2–1) is tracing the embedded denser cloud cores and the EW velocity gradient is much less evident.

Moreover, they show other isolated cores of emission, such as S68N, visible in the CS central velocity map. This core has a weak N2H+ counterpart shown in the N2H+ channel map of TSOO at a velocity of about 8.2 km s-1. Another emission peak at the position of SMM1 is visible in both the CS and C34S 8.4–12.4 km s-1channel maps; in C34S this emission peak is also visible in the other velocity channels. The Spur is also visible in the central velocity map. Finally, in the CS 8.4–12.4 km s-1channel map the SE sub-cluster appears to be composed of two separate cores, one at the position of SMM4 and the other slightly north of the SMM 3/6 group.

The central velocity 13CO map shows an emission peak at the position of SMM4 and of the CS peak. Another peak is visible sligthly NW of SMM3; the N2H+ core B is positioned between these two emission peaks. In the 5.0-7.3 km s-1channel map a sharp peak of 13CO emission is visible South of SMM4, which is also the region of C18O emission, although the peaks are not coincident. A secondary peak of C18O emission can be found in the NE region of this velocity channel that is coincident with enhanced 13CO emission. There are clearly two velocity components overlapping at this position, as shown by the C18O and 13CO spectra.

#### 3.3.2 Large-scale velocity gradient

The velocity gradient of an interstellar gas cloud can be determined by using all or most of the data in a map at once, by least-squares fitting maps of line-center velocity for the direction and magnitude of the best-fit velocity gradient (see Goodman et al. good93 (1993) and references therein).

A cloud undergoing solid-body rotation would exhibit a linear gradient, $`\mathrm{d}V/\mathrm{d}r`$, across the face of a map, perpendicular to the rotation axis. Thus, following Goodman et al. (good93 (1993)) we fit the function

$$V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=V_o+a\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha +b\mathrm{\Delta }\delta $$
(1)
to the peak velocity of a Gaussian fit to the emission profile of several molecular tracers. Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta `$ represent offsets in right ascension and declination, expressed in radians, $`a`$ and $`b`$ are the projections of the gradient per radian on the $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$ axes, respectively, and $`V_o`$ is the LSR systemic velocity of the cloud. The magnitude of the velocity gradient, in a cloud at distance $`d`$, is thus given by

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}V}{\mathrm{d}r}=\frac{(a^2+b^2)^{1/2}}{d}$$
(2)
and its direction (measured east of north) is

$$\theta _\mathrm{v}=\mathrm{tan}^1\frac{a}{b}$$
(3)
In order to carry out a least-squares fit to Eq.(1) we have computed the following error function

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i,j}{}\left[\frac{V_{\mathrm{LSR}}(i,j)V_oa\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _ib\mathrm{\Delta }\delta _j}{\sigma _v(i,j)}\right]^2$$
(4)
where $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}(i,j)`$ is the velocity of the Gaussian fit to the spectrum at position $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _i,\mathrm{\Delta }\delta _j)`$ in the map, and $`\sigma _v(i,j)`$ is the uncertainty in $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ determined by the fit, given by (see Goodman et al. good93 (1993) and references therein):

$$\sigma _v=1.15\left(\frac{\sigma _T}{T}\right)(\delta _v\mathrm{\Delta }V)^{1/2}$$
(5)
where $`T`$ is the peak of a Gaussian fit to the line profile, $`\sigma _T`$ is the RMS noise in the spectrum, $`\delta _v`$ is the velocity resolution of the spectrum and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ is the FWHM line width. Only those points for which SNR$`=T/\sigma _T>3`$ were used in Eq.(4).

To find the minimum of the function expressed by Eq.(4) we have used the downhill simplex method, using “AMOEBA” of Press et al. (nr92 (1992)) as the basic multidimensional minimization routine. The results are listed in Table 2 for the various molecular tracers. Two comments are in order: (i) N2H+ and C34S trace the denser gas in the cores and are thus less suited to calculate the large-scale velocity gradient; (ii) 13CO is mostly optically thick with a non-Gaussian line profile and it is also not reliable. For these reasons we choose C18O as the best available tracer to us of the velocity gradient in the Serpens cloud. Despite the aforementioned caveats, the direction of the velocity gradient is not significantly different from one tracer to another and confirms our early assumption in Sect. 3.3.1 that the Serpens cloud exhibits a velocity gradient roughly E to W.

#### 3.3.3 Centroid velocity maps

The centroid velocity of a line is that velocity at which the integrated intensity is equal on either side of the line profile, and we compute it as in Narayanan et al. (nar98 (1998)). Centroid velocity maps are usually a good indicator of global velocity structures, such as rotational motions, and we use them here as further evidence of the large-scale velocity gradient found in the previous section.

In Fig. 8 we present the centroid velocity maps of the 13CO and C18O lines. To minimize the potential contamination of the kinematics of the cloud by the outflow velocity fields, the centroid velocities were computed over line core intervals ($`6.010.5`$ km s-1) which must also be wide enough to encompass the line core emission in both the NW and SE sub-clumps. Both maps show an increasing gradient in centroid velocity from roughly E to W, as expected.

The maps shown in Fig. 8 also show a velocity “bulge” extending from about the map center towards the E, which may be caused by one of the redshifted CO(1–0) outflow lobes found by Narayanan et al. (nmwb01 (2002)), despite our centroid velocities are calculated using only line core emission. Even if some contamination of the centroid velocity maps by the outflows may still be present, the velocity gradient observed in the maps of Fig. 8 is extended to the whole Serpens cloud and is unlikely that the 13CO and C18O centroid velocities are seriously affected by the outflows. We can also exclude that the observed velocity gradient is due to separate clumps with different systemic velocities, as the differences in the lines $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ are less or comparable with the line FWHM of C18O and show a smooth change from E to W. As will be further discussed in Sect. 4.1, we conclude that the observed velocity gradient may indeed be caused by a global rotation of the Serpens molecular cloud whose rotation axis is roughly aligned in the SN direction.

In Fig. 8 we also present the centroid velocity maps of the CS and C34S(2–1) transitions. The CS map shows essentially a plateau in the region where most of the CS(2–1) emission is detected. Our spatial resolution is not good enough to distinguish any particular feature around specific submillimeter sources. However, we note once again the small bulge of redshifted emission E of the map center.

#### 3.3.4 Normalized velocity difference maps and infall speeds

A diagnostics which is often used to disentangle the large-scale kinematics of molecular cloud cores is based on the normalized centroid velocity difference (see Mardones et al. mard97 (1997)). The normalized centroid velocity difference $`\delta V_\mathrm{c}`$ is a non-dimensional parameter defined as:

$$\delta V_\mathrm{c}=\frac{V_\mathrm{c}(\mathrm{CS})V_\mathrm{c}(\mathrm{C}^{34}\mathrm{S})}{\mathrm{\Delta }V(\mathrm{C}^{34}\mathrm{S})}$$
(6)
and is very useful to quantify the observed line asymmetries in the optically thick CS(2–1) line. Alternatively, one can use N2H+(1–0) to replace C34S as the optically thin tracer in Eq. (6). A blue asymmetry ($`\delta V_\mathrm{c}0`$) can be interpreted as an indication of infall motion (Myers et al. Mea96 (1996); Mardones et al. mard97 (1997)).

In Fig. 9 the map of $`\delta V_\mathrm{c}`$ as defined in Eq. (6) is shown. We decided to use CS as the optically thick tracer and C34S, rather than N2H+, as the optically thin tracer to ensure that both species have homogeneous chemical properties. We can see that there are two regions of the map where the negative values of $`\delta V_\mathrm{c}`$ are more concentrated, which are approximately coincident with the SE and NW sub-clumps. This indicates that there is molecular gas around the SE and NW sub-clusters which is still undergoing an infalling motion.

Typical infall speeds at different positions in the SE and NW clumps can be calculated by using the simple two layer model of Myers et al. (Mea96 (1996)), which gives:

$$V_{\mathrm{in}}\frac{\sigma _\mathrm{v}}{V_{\mathrm{red}}V_{\mathrm{blue}}}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1+eT_{\mathrm{BD}}/T_\mathrm{D}}{1+eT_{\mathrm{RD}}/T_\mathrm{D}}\right)$$
(7)
where $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ is the brightness temperature of the dip in the CS line shape, $`T_{\mathrm{BD}}`$ is the height of the blue peak above the dip, and $`T_{\mathrm{RD}}`$ is the height of the red peak above the dip. The velocity dispersion $`\sigma _\mathrm{v}`$ can be obtained from the FWHM of an optically thin line, such as N2H+, thus $`\sigma _\mathrm{v}=\mathrm{\Delta }V_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}/\sqrt{8\mathrm{log}2}`$. The results are shown in Table 3, where the first two positions refer to the SE clump, and the next three correspond to the NW clump. In the SE clump (including position B, not shown in Table 3) the CS line profiles are more symmetric, implying a lower infall speed, except near position A where $`V_{\mathrm{in}}>0.2`$ km s-1. This suggests different states in the core contraction process, as also shown by Fig. 9.

A similar difference clearly exists in the NW sub-clump, where positions C and E show substantially different infall speed compared to position D. This difference has also been observed by Williams & Myers (WM99 (1999)), and our results confirm their conclusion about the presence of supersonic ($`V_{\mathrm{in}}>\sigma _{\mathrm{th}}[\mathrm{H}_2]=0.27`$ km s-1at $`T=20`$ K) inward motions in the NW sub-clump, and indicate near-supersonic contraction in the SE sub-clump.

For these same positions we can quantify the turbulent motion by comparing the N2H+ line FWHM with that expected for gas having equal thermal and non-thermal motions (Mardones et al. mard97 (1997), Lee et al. L99 (1999)):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V_{}=\left[8\mathrm{log}2kT\left(\frac{1}{m_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}}+\frac{1}{m_{\mathrm{av}}}\right)\right]^{1/2}$$
(8)
where T is the gas kinetic temperature, $`k`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`m_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}`$ is the molecular weight of N2H+ (29 amu), and $`m_{\mathrm{av}}`$ is the gas mean molecular weight (2.3 amu). For gas with $`T=20`$ K, we find that $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}>\mathrm{\Delta }V_{}=0.66`$ km s-1, thus having greater non-thermal than thermal motions (see Table 3). This result is consistent with the prevalence of turbulent infall motions in a sample of cores with embedded YSOs found by Mardones et al. (mard97 (1997)), whereas Lee et al. (L99 (1999)) found that most starless infall candidates are in a state of thermal infall. Incidentally, we note that also the starless core at position E has a greater turbulent rather than thermal motion.

The aim of this paper is not to calculate the mass infall rate for every cloud core, as our spatial resolution is not high enough. However, for consistency we did calculate the kinematic mass infall rate, $`(\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}t)_{\mathrm{kin}}=4\pi R_{\mathrm{in}}^2m_{\mathrm{av}}n_{\mathrm{H}_2}V_{\mathrm{in}}`$, toward position E. The infall radius was taken from Williams & Myers (WM99 (1999)), $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=6200`$ AU, $`V_{\mathrm{in}}=0.44`$ km s-1 from Table 3, and $`m_{\mathrm{av}}n_{\mathrm{H}_2}`$ was obtained by taking the average of all mass estimates in Table 4 (except for the values obtained from the statistical equilibrium method, see Sect. 3.4.2) and dividing by the total volume of the NW clump. Thus, we obtain $`(\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}t)_{\mathrm{kin}}\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ Myr-1. This value can be compared with the gravitational mass accretion rate of $`(\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}t)_{\mathrm{gr}}=0.975a^3/G`$ (Shu shu77 (1977)), where $`a`$ is the velocity dispersion of the molecule of mean mass $`m_{\mathrm{av}}`$, $`a^2=kT/m_{\mathrm{av}}+\sigma _{\mathrm{NT}}^2`$. Using $`T=20`$ K and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{NT}}`$ from Table 3, we find $`(\mathrm{d}M/\mathrm{d}t)_{\mathrm{gr}}\mathrm{5.9\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ Myr-1. The agreement of these two rates indicates that the derived inward motion at position E is consistent with gravitational infall.

#### 3.3.5 Line width maps

Another useful diagnostic tool is to plot a measure of the width of the line profile. Given the deviation from a Gaussian line profile presented by some of the observed molecular tracers, in Fig. 10 we show the maps of the $`2^{nd}`$ moment of the data.

The map of the 13CO line width in Fig. 10 clearly shows that the FWHM in the SE clump is enhanced compared to the rest of the ambient cloud. Although to a lesser extent, this is also seen in the NW clump. The C18O line widths are also larger in the SE clump, which is also an effect of the presence of the two velocity components (clumps A, B and the Spur) in this part of the cloud. A two-component Gaussian fit in the SE region shows that most of the contribution to the line width of C18O(1–0) comes from the lowest velocity component, although the peak of the line-FWHM is shifted relatively to the nominal positions of the clumps A and B.

Likewise, the N2H+(1–0) map shows an enhacement of the line width in the SE clump, whereas this is less evident in the NW clump, also due to the limited extension of the map in that region. The CS(2–1) and C34S(2–1) maps of the $`2^{nd}`$ moment of the data shown in Fig. 10 show some enhacement of the line width at the positions of the submillimeter sources, but the most noticeable feature is the much larger line width at the position of the S68NW starless core described by Williams & Myers (WM99 (1999)).

### 3.4 Physical parameters

In this section we derive the physical parameters of the molecular gas, using various tracers and approximations. We first derive estimates of the gas excitation and column densities using a simplified LTE approximation, then we derive particle densities from the C34S line intensities using an LVG approximation combining our data with the C34S(5-4) observations of McMullin et al. (mcm94 (1994)). Finally, we provide various estimates of the masses of the entire cloud and of the various clumps identified by TSOO.

#### 3.4.1 Excitation and column densities

The C18O emission can be used to trace the column density of the Serpens cloud. To derive values for the column density we first estimated the excitation temperature throughout the entire region, based on the 13CO line temperatures at a velocity of 8.58 km s-1. We also estimated the C18O optical depths using the 13CO to C18O line ratio and a relative abundance $`X`$\[13CO\]/$`X`$\[C18O\]$`=12`$. We then used both $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and $`\tau `$(C18O) to calculate the column density of a $`JJ1`$ rotational transition according to the following formula (Lis & Goldsmith lg91 (1991)):

$$N_{\mathrm{tot}}=\frac{4.0\times 10^{12}}{J^2\mu ^2B}Z\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E_\mathrm{J}}{T_{\mathrm{ex}}}\right)\frac{1}{\eta _{\mathrm{mb}}}\frac{\tau }{1e^\tau }T_\mathrm{A}^{}dv$$
(9)
where $`B`$ denotes the rotational constant, $`E_\mathrm{J}`$ is the upper state energy, $`\mu `$ is the dipole moment and we use the escape probability $`\tau /[1\mathrm{exp}(\tau )]`$ to account for first order optical depth effects. We also assume a unity beam-filling factor. The excitation temperature is obtained by inverting the equation of transport:

$$T_{\mathrm{mb}}=[J_\nu (T_{\mathrm{ex}})J_\nu (T_{\mathrm{bg}})][1\mathrm{exp}(\tau )]$$
(10)
where $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and $`\tau `$ are calculated at a specific velocity and $`\tau `$ is evaluated as described above. Moreover, for $`kT_{\mathrm{ex}}>>hB`$ the partition function of a linear molecule is given by

$$Z=\frac{kT_{\mathrm{ex}}}{hB}$$
(11)
where $`h`$ is the Planck constant. The distribution of $`N_{\mathrm{tot}}`$(H2) calculated using C18O data is shown in Fig. 11 and corresponds very well to the map of the C18O integrated emission of Fig. 1.

The CS and C34S data can be used to derive the gas total column density following the method described above for 13CO and C18O. C34S is in fact optically thin and can thus be successfully used to trace the column density of the gas if its relative abundance can be determined. We derived the C34S abundance using the LVG approximation to model the measured line intensities, as described later in this section. Therefore, we can use C18O and C34S to compare the spatial distributions of the column density and excitation temperature at two velocities characterizing the NW (8.58 km s-1) and SE (7.3 km s-1) sub-clumps. We find that CS and C18O show a different behaviour: in fact, the C18O maps present a spatial offset between the peaks of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and those of the gas column density distributions (see Fig. 11). At the velocity of the NW sub-clump the C18O column density map shows a clump that surrounds the NW group of submillimeter sources, whereas the map of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ shows a smooth plateau at the same position. At the velocity characterizing the SE sub-clump these differences are less extreme: a broad peak of column density surrounds sources SMM2/4/11, whereas the $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ map peaks between SMM4 and SMM3/6. In both the NW and SE sub-clumps the distribution of the column density (see Fig. 11) follows quite closely the map of the C18O integrated emission shown in the bottom panel of Fig. 1, suggesting that the emission peaks are column density maxima and are not due to peaks in the excitation of the molecular gas.

The CS and C34S transitions can also be used to determine the spatial distribution of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$(C32S) and the column density. The map of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$(C32S) has a broad peak including the SMM 3/4/6/8 group. The gas traced by CS, however, is characterized by spatial distributions of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and column density that are much more similar (see Fig. 12). In the NW sub-cluster the column density map shows a peak at the position of S68NW, while $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ has a maximum slightly NW of the S68NW position. At the velocity characterizing the SE sub-cluster, the $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and column density maps both have a peak very close to the position of SMM4 and show little differences otherwise. Therefore, there is a tendency of the gas column density to have a different spatial distribution from that of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ in the NW sub-cluster, and this difference is much more evident in C18O.

#### 3.4.2 Density estimates

The physical number densities towards the densest condensations can be derived using density tracers such as the optically thin C34S transitions. Because we observed the $`J=21`$ line only, we also used the C34S(2–1) and (5–4) observations towards SMM1 of McMullin et al. (mcm94 (1994)). By using the $`J=21`$ measurements taken with the FCRAO and NRAO telescopes we were able to estimate the deconvolved angular diameter of the source $`\theta _\mathrm{s}70^{\prime \prime }`$. Assuming a gas temperature of 35 K towards SMM1 and a velocity gradient of about 21 km s-1 pc-1, we then used the LVG approximation to model the measured line intensities, obtaining a number density $`n_{\mathrm{H}_2}5.6\times 10^5`$ cm-3 and a relative abundance $`X`$\[C34S\]/$`X`$\[H2\]$`=4\times 10^{11}`$, which are consistent with the values obtained by McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)). There are no C34S(5–4) observations towards the SE sub-clump. However, an estimate of the physical conditions at the SMM4 position can be derived by using the LVG model parameters obtained for SMM1, and changing one parameter only, e.g. the density, to fit the C34S(2–1) line intensity. By doing this we derive $`n_{\mathrm{H}_2}7\times 10^5`$ cm-3 towards SMM4.

#### 3.4.3 Mass estimates

Integrating over an area of 111 arcmin2, or 0.90 pc2, the total mass of the C18O emitting region is about 200-500 M depending on the adopted value for the excitation temperature and assuming a distance to Serpens of 310 pc and a C18O fractional abundance of $`X`$\[C18O\]/$`X`$\[H2\]$`=10^7`$ (McMullin et al. mcm00 (2000)). The 13CO excitation temperature used to calculate the total mass in the Serpens cloud can be estimated as described in Sect. 3.4.1, obtaining values in the range $`7`$ to 22 K, used to calculate the column densities in Fig. 11. However, these temperatures are lower than the gas temperatures derived by McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)), due to the fact that the peak 13CO line temperature traces the cooler larger scale cloud. The range in the cloud total mass given above reflects these uncertainties in the value of the excitation temperature.

The maps shown in Figs. 11 and 12 are likely to underestimate the column density when the 13CO excitation temperature is used. Therefore, we have estimated the column density using an overall gas temperature of 25 K from McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)), it is then possible to obtain the masses of the molecular gas in the NW and SE clumps using the formula:

$$M_{\mathrm{cd}}=d^2m(\mathrm{H}_2)\mu _\mathrm{g}N(\mathrm{H}_2)d\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(12)
where $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the hydrogen column density integrated over the region enclosed by the contour level at 50% of the peak value for each sub-clump, $`\mu _\mathrm{g}`$ is the mean molecular weight (1.36), $`m(\mathrm{H}_2)`$ is the mass of a hydrogen molecule and $`d`$ is the distance to the Serpens cloud. The masses derived in this way (see Table 4) can be compared with the virial masses,

$$M_{\mathrm{vr}}(M_{})=0.509d(\mathrm{kpc})\theta _\mathrm{s}(\mathrm{arcsec})\mathrm{\Delta }v^2(\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)$$
(13)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ is the average full width at half maximum of the line ($``$1.3 and $``$1.6 km s-1for C18O and C34S, respectively). The typical diameter of the source is obtained as $`\theta _\mathrm{s}=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ is the solid angle, within the 50% contour, subtended by each sub-clump and measured using Figs. 11 and 12. The masses of the two condensations can also be constrained assuming a spherical geometry and the peak density derived from a statistical equilibrium model applied to the C34S transitions (see above), and using

$$M_{\mathrm{se}}(M_{})=2.926\times 10^9d^3(\mathrm{kpc})\theta _\mathrm{s}^3(\mathrm{arcsec})n_{\mathrm{H}_2}(\mathrm{cm}^3)$$
(14)
Clearly, $`M_{\mathrm{se}}`$ should be considered an upper limit to the mass of the molecular gas as we have used the peak and not average density values, and it is also much more sensitive to the error on the distance to the cloud. In Table 4 we present a summary of the various mass determinations for the two sub-clumps SE and NW, including the values determined in TSOO and TS98 for the N2H+(1–0) virial mass and for the total mass of the dust cores and stellar components within the clumps.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Large-scale cloud kinematics

As discussed in Sect. 3.3, our 13CO and C18O data show a large-scale gradient in the line centroid velocity, which appears to be consistent with what expected if the cloud is in slow rotation. Using the C18O value for the velocity gradient found in Sect. 3.3.2 we find an angular velocity $`\omega 4.1\times 10^{14}`$ s-1 and following Goodman et al. (good93 (1993)) we can then calculate the parameter $`\beta `$, defined as the ratio of rotational kinetic energy to gravitational energy. For a sphere with constant density, $`\rho _{}`$, $`\beta `$ can be written as:

$$\beta =\frac{1}{4\pi G\rho _{}}\omega ^2$$
(15)
wehere $`G`$ is the gravitational constant. To calculate $`\rho _{}`$ we use the total gas mass, $``$300 M (corresponding to an extended region that includes both the NW and SE clumps and the lower density envelope) and the corresponding average radius, 0.55 pc. Hence, $`\rho _{}2.9\times 10^{20}`$ g cm-3. Substituting in Eq. (15) we find $`\beta 0.07`$. All clouds studied by Goodman et al. (good93 (1993)) and Barranco & Goodman (BG98 (1998)) have $`\beta <0.18`$, which is low enough to inhibit, according to those authors, fragmentation due to rotationally driven instabilities. Hence, the fragmentation observed in Serpens may have involved both gravitational and magnetic instabilities, but it is very unlikely that the cloud rotation could have induced fragmentation. Incidentally, we note that the direction of the velocity gradient is approximately perpendicular to the average outflow axis determined by TSOO (see also Table 5). It is tempting to speculate that the global cloud rotation may have influenced the orientation of circumstellar disks surrounding each individual (proto-)cluster member; however, at this time this is a pure speculation since we cannot prove whether there is a physical connection between these two similar directions. The relationship between the large-scale velocity gradients and the young stellar objects embedded in the Serpens core should be further studied by measuring the velocity gradients in the circumstellar disks surrounding most of the objects (see e.g. Hogerheijde et al. Hea99 (1999)).

The simple rigid body rotation approximation used to derive $`\omega `$ and $`\beta `$ may be questioned in a cloud core that displays a large non-thermal contribution to the line width, an indication of complex motion on scales much smaller than the beam width. Nevertheless, Burkert & Bodenheimer (bb00 (2000)) have shown that turbulent cloud cores with random gaussian velocity fields may have a net angular momentum different from zero and may display a global velocity gradient. Surprisingly, the values of the specific angular momentum derived assuming a rigid body rotation represent a good approximation to the real values induced by the turbulent motions, at least within a factor of a few (Burkert & Bodenheimer bb00 (2000)). Our conclusion that the measured cloud angular momentum is not large enough to play a dominant role in the fragmentation of the cloud and on the formation of the cluster is thus robust.

At present we cannot exclude that the observed velocity gradient is produced by a more complex kinematical structure of the cloud, such as a shear motion or a non-spherically symmetric contraction of the cloud. A shear motion would imply a net angular momentum of the cloud, similar to the rigid rotation discussed above. In fact, a shear motion can be seen as a complex rotational pattern, and would not change significantly the discussion above.

Perhaps more interesting would be the possibility of a global, non sperically symmetric cloud contraction. A comparison of the total cloud mass as derived from the C18O column density ($`\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}`$300 M) and the virial mass ($``$150 M), suggests that a global contraction may be possible. This would also be consistent with the infall signature detected in the innermost regions of the cloud (see Sect. 3.3 and 3.4). However, the measured velocity gradient (see Table 2 and Fig. 8) would imply peak contraction velocities $`\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}0.5`$ km s-1, which is larger than the infall velocities measured in the inner regions of the cloud (see Table 3). We thus conclude that this is an unlikely possibility.

### 4.2 Cloud contraction and large-scale physical conditions

In Sect. 3.4 we showed that the cloud core displays two column density maxima roughly coincident with the two sub-clump identified by TSOO. There is also a strong correlation between the high column density regions and the infalling signature in the normalized centroid velocity difference map (Sect. 3.3 and Fig. 9). As noted in the higher resolution N2H+(1–0)/CS(2–1) study of the NW sub-clump by Williams & Myers (WM00 (2000)), it appears that the infalling speeds are higher in the high column density regions surrounding the already formed young stellar objects but not at their precise location, where the feedback produced by protostellar outflows is acting against the infall. Thus, our observations, together with those of Williams & Myers, support the view that the conditions for collapse are met in the higher density regions of the cloud, which are globally contracting. At a few selected locations the collapse has already produced YSOs that, by means of their molecular outflows, are starting to revert the accretion and disperse the cloud core.

We have also calculated the turbulent crossing time for the main sub-clumps in Serpens. The crossing time is defined as the radius divided by the Gaussian dispersion in internal velocity (see Sect. 3.3.4). We used the solid angle subtended by the 50% contour (of the corresponding peak value) to calculate the radius of the main N2H+ cores of emission, B, C and D. We repeated the same operation for the core E and for the SE sub-clump mapped in the C34S(2–1) line. The crossing times are remarkably similar, varying in the interval $`1.2\times 10^5`$ to $`1.5\times 10^5`$ yr, although the radii vary by a factor of 2 (0.055 pc to 0.115 pc) and the velocity dispersions by almost a factor of three (0.35 to 0.98 km s-1). In the case of the NW sub-clump these values are consistent with the time needed to reach chemical steady state, i.e. several times $`10^5`$ years according to McMullin et al. (mcm00 (2000)). These large cores coexist in Serpens with smaller and younger regions (e.g., Williams & Myers WM99 (1999), WM00 (2000), Narayanan et al. nmwb01 (2002)) suggesting a wide range of evolutionary stages.

### 4.3 Star formation efficiency in Serpens

Combining our data with the results of TS98, TSOO, Giovannetti et al. (Gea98 (1998)), Kaas (K99 (1999)), and White et al. (Wea95 (1995)) we can estimate the average and local star formation efficiency in the Serpens cloud core. In Table 4 we summarize the mass estimates for the gaseous sub-clumps, for the dust cores and for the young stellar objects embedded within them. The total mass of the Serpens cloud has been estimated to be in the range 300 (see Sections 4.1, 3.4.3 and McMullin et al. mcm00 (2000)) to 1500 M (White et al. Wea95 (1995)), whereas the total mass of the young stellar cluster is estimated to be $``$25-40 M to which one should add the mass of forming stars in the dust cores of TS98. Assuming that the cores will produce stars with a 50% efficiency, meaning that half of each core mass will end up in a young star and half will be ejected in a protostellar outflow, the total mass of the final cluster is estimated in the range 40-60 M. The global star formation efficiency is thus estimated in the range 3 to 10%. However, within the two sub-clumps defined by the N2H+(1–0) FWHM contours, where the gas column density is higher, the global infall motion is detected (Sect. 4.2 and Williams & Myers WM00 (2000)) and where most of the submillimeter prestellar cores and protostars are located (TS98, TSOO), the local star formation efficiency is much higher (25 to 50%), suggesting that where the collapse conditions are met the star formation process proceeds with a high efficiency.

## 5 Conclusions

We performed wide-field imaging (up to about $`16^{}\times 16^{}`$) of the emission towards the Serpens cloud core using moderately optically thick (13CO(1–0) and CS(2–1)) and optically thin tracers (C18O(1–0), C34S(2–1), and N2H+(1–0)). Our main goal was to study the large-scale distribution of the molecular gas in the Serpens region and to understand its relation with the denser gas in the cloud cores, previously studied at high angular resolution.

The 13CO and C18O(1–0) emission traces the distribution of the column density in the Serpens cloud. The 13CO emission is extended and encompasses both the NW and SE clusters of submillimeter continuum sources, whereas the C18O emission shows the clear demarcation between the NW and SE sub-clumps, which are also separated in velocity (see also TSOO). Maps of the CS and C34S(2–1) emission show several condensations in the two main sub-clumps, NW and SE, but present otherwise a different appearance from N2H+. The latter follows the spatial distribution of the submillimeter sources in both the NW and SE sub-clumps much more closely than the other molecular tracers. In both the NW and SE sub-clumps the distribution of the column density follows quite closely the map of the C18O and C34S integrated emission, suggesting that the emission peaks are column density maxima and are not due to peaks in the excitation of the molecular gas. We also find that the SE and NW sub-clumps are virialised with masses typically of order $`60M_{}`$ and peak number densities of order $`n_{\mathrm{H}_2}7\times 10^5`$ cm-3.

The 13CO and C18O(1–0) maps of the centroid velocity show an increasing but smooth gradient in velocity from E to W. Using most of the data in a map at once, by least-squares fitting maps of line-center velocity for the direction and magnitude of the best-fit velocity gradient, we find that C18O has a 1.25 km s-1 pc-1 velocity gradient which is directed from E to W. The velocity gradient is extended to the whole Serpens cloud and is unlikely that the 13CO and C18O centroid velocities are seriously affected by the outflows. We can also reasonably exclude that the observed velocity gradient is due to separate clumps with different systemic velocities, or that it is due to a global, non-symmetric cloud contraction. We thus think that the observed velocity gradient may indeed be caused by a global rotation of the Serpens molecular cloud whose rotation axis is very close to the SN direction, similar to the average outflow axis found by TSOO. Following Goodman et al. (good93 (1993)) we also calculated the parameter $`\beta `$, defined as the ratio of rotational kinetic energy to gravitational energy. We find $`\beta 0.07`$ which, according to Goodman et al. (good93 (1993)), is low enough to inhibit fragmentation due to rotationally driven instabilities. The cloud angular momentum is not sufficient for being dynamically important in the global evolution of the cluster. Nevertheless, the fact that the outflows are roughly aligned with it may suggest a link between the large-scale angular momentum and the circumstellar disks around individual protostars in the cluster. However, our data does not allow to prove this connection.

The normalized centroid velocity difference, $`\delta V_\mathrm{c}`$, is a typical indicator of underlying infall. Using CS and C34S we find two large regions of the map where the negative values of $`\delta V_\mathrm{c}`$ are more concentrated, which are approximately coincident with the SE and NW sub0clumps. We find that the SE and NW sub-clumps have greater non-thermal than thermal motions, and we calculate infall velocities of about 0.1 to 0.4 km s-1. Together with the results of Williams & Myers (WM00 (2000)), our observations suggest that infalling conditions are met in a relatively large region where the column density of the gas exceeds a certain threshold; when a protostellar object is formed, its outflow locally acts against the infall.

Whithin the high column density regions, where the infalling signature is detected, the local star formation efficiency is much larger than in the entire cloud. This is consistent with the picture that where the conditions for star formation are met, then the process is highly efficient. Given that outflows from young protostars appear to oppose locally to the infall, such high star formation efficiency can be achieved only if most of the objects in the cluster are formed over a very short timescale. This short formation timescale, which does not allow much time for interaction between protostars given the relatively low density of objects observed in Serpens, and the indication that the prestellar cores mass function is consistent with the field stars IMF (TS98), suggest that dynamical interactions and competitive accretion may not be the dominating processes in these types of regions.

The observational connection of the large-scale rotation and the individual stellar systems flows, and the extended slow inflow motion limited to the high column density regions, appear to be consistent with a slow global evolution of the cloud that locally reachs the conditions for gravitational collapse and star formation. The very short timescale for the formation of the bulk of the cluster is advocated by both the accelerated star formation view of Palla & Stahler (PS00 (2000)) or the dynamical star formation view of Elmegreen (E00 (2000)).

It is difficult, from our observations, to give a definitive answer to whether star formation occurs in a slow quasi static fashion up to the point of instability or whether the entire process is driven by the fast dissipation of turbulence in clouds. Our data appear to be in qualitative agreement with the expectation of a slow contraction followed by a rapid and highly efficient star formation phase in localized high density regions. Our evidence is not conclusive, but we provide a series of observational constraints with which numerical simulation have to be tested against quantitatively. From the observational point of view, on the one hand the possible connection between the large-scale rotation and the individual circumstellar regions should be made more precise by means of high angular observations, on the other hand comparisons between wide area studies of the physical and kinematical conditions within giant molecular clouds and the distribution and properties of the young (forming) stars within them should be extended to other complexes.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Matthew Bate, Riccardo Cesaroni, Cathie Clarke, Bruce Elmegreen, Ralf Klessen, Mordecai Mac Low, Francesco Palla, Anneila Sargent and Malcolm Walmsley for insightful discussions about the various models, numerical simulations, and the possible observational tests. We thank Chris Davis and Joseph McMullin for promptly providing their published data in electronic form. This work was sponsored in part by the Advance Research Project Agency, Sensor Technology Office DARPA Order No. C134 Program Code No. 63226E issued by DARPA/CMO under contract No. MDA972-95-C-0004.


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# Pulsar Wind Nebulae and Particle Acceleration in the Pulsar Magnetosphere

## 1 Introduction

KC model (Kennel and Coroniti 1984) assumes that a super fast MHD wind from the central pulsar terminates at a shock, and the shocked wind radiates in synchrotron radiation, which is observed as the nebula. The central cavity is identified as the wind region.

The pulsar wind is originally Poynting energy dominant deep in the pulsar magnetosphere, but by MHD acceleration the energy is converted into kinetic energy of the plasma outflow. How efficient the acceleration is a main problem in the theory of relativistic centrifugal wind. It is known that this problem is coupled with the jet-disc formation, which is clearly observed with Chandra (Fig. 4).

The acceleration efficiency is parameterized by so-called $`\sigma `$-parameter which is the ratio of the Poynting energy to kinetic energy of the terminal flow just before the shock. KC find that $`\sigma `$ determins the expansion speed of the nebula and in turn spectrum of the nebula. It was a great success that KC model reproduces the nebula spectrum (Fig. 1). KC found that $`\sigma =0.003`$ (kinetic energy dominant) and the Lorentz factor of the wind is $`3\times 10^6`$.

On the other hand, no wind theory explains such a high acceleration. It must be noted that the observed image suggest that the wind has jet-disc structure, which is not explained, either.

The aim of this paper is to apply the picture of KED wind to the new Chandra data and examine whether the model still describes the nebula well or it needs some modification.

## 2 Model

Nebula Flow is based on the KC model:
\- toroidal magnetic field
\- ideal MHD radial flow
\- confined in a disc and jet (opening angles 20 degree)
\- $`L=5\times 10^{38}`$ erg/s, $`\gamma _{wind}=3\times 10^6`$, $`\sigma =0.003`$
\- power law spectrum just after the shock

Given flow pattern $`V(R,t)`$, we solve evolution of distribution function $`f(t,ϵ)`$ and magnetic field in the flow with

$`{\displaystyle \frac{DR}{Dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`V,`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{Dt}}\left(\mathrm{ln}B\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{V}{R}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V}{R}}\right),`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{Dt}}\left(\mathrm{ln}n\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{Dt}}\left(\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Gamma }\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{2V}{R}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V}{R}}\right),`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{Dt^{}}}\left(\mathrm{ln}ϵ\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{D}{Dt^{}}}\left(\mathrm{ln}n\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{dt^{}}}\right)_{\mathrm{loss}},`$ (4)
and

$$f(t^{},ϵ)=\frac{n}{n_\mathrm{i}}f_\mathrm{i}(ϵ_\mathrm{i})\frac{dϵ_\mathrm{i}}{dϵ},$$
(5)
where adiabatic and synchrotron losses are taken into account (Fig 3); $`R`$ is the radial distance of the fluid elecment, $`t^{}`$ is the proper time, and other notations are as usual. Since the distribution function is obtained in the flow proper frame, the specific emissivity is first obtained in the proper frame. Given the observer’s direction, in use of Lerentz transformation, the emissivity is evaluated for the observer and integrated along the line-of-sight to obtain the observed brightness.

## 3 Results

1. Reproduced X-ray image is not a ring but ‘lip’-shaped (Fig. 5). This is due to the assumption that the magnetic field is pure toroidal. We suggest that some important fraction must be in turbulent field.
2. Intensity contrast between fore and back sides is obtained to be 1.3, while an observed value is about 5. Inconsistency is due to deceleration of the nebula flow, which is a result of small sigma value.
3. Spatial variation of the spectra is well explained by the model with small sigma (not shown here in a form of fiugre).
4. The above points 2. and 3. are incompatible under a small-sigma model, suggesting some important ingredient is missing.

## 4 Concluding Remarks

A simple extension of the KC model to the Chandra observation lead us to incompatible results: On one hand the model with a small sigma value gives a spectrum in agreement with the observation, on the other hand the same model gives inconsistent intensity contrast. Together with the suggestion of turbulent field, the nebula flow may probably be in non-ideal MHD, which means particles are accelerated not only at the shock but also in a larger region in the nebula by, say, magnetic reconnection. The value of $`\sigma `$ is not constrained to be as small as $`10^4`$.

references

> Atoyan, A. M. & Aharonian, F. A. 1996, MNRAS 278 525
>
> Kennel, C. F. & Coroniti, F. V. 1984, ApJ 283 694
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> Kennel, C. F. & Coroniti, F. V. 1984, ApJ 283 710
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> Mori, K., 2002 PhD thesis, Ohsaka University
>
> Wiesskopf, M. C., et al. 2000, ApJ 536 L81


text:
# Free initial wave packets and the long-time behavior of the survival and nonescape probabilities

## Abstract

The behavior of both the survival $`S(t)`$ and nonescape $`P(t)`$ probabilities at long times for the one-dimensional free particle system is shown to be closely connected to that of the initial wave packet at small momentum. We prove that both $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ asymptotically exhibit the same power-law decrease at long times, when the initial wave packet in momentum representation behaves as $`k^m`$ with $`m=0`$ or $`1`$ at small momentum. On the other hand, if the integer $`m`$ becomes greater than $`1`$, $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ decrease in different power-laws at long times.

The study of the space-time evolution of the wave packets is very significant for understanding of the scattering phenomena and attracting many researchers in the various fields. It is then helpful to know the complete information about the free particle system. For the one dimensional case, if the Gaussian wave packet is chosen as the initial one, the wave packet $`\psi (x,t)`$ decreases asymptotically as $`t^{1/2}`$ at long times. However, it has been recently found that the maximum of wave packet does not necessarily behave as $`t^{1/2}`$ for non-Gaussian initial-wave-packet. In fact, a slower decrease than $`t^{1/2}`$ can be found for the power-law tail wave packet Unnikrishnan ; Lillo ; Mendes , and a faster decrease than $`t^{1/2}`$ can occur for the wave packet which vanishes at zero momentum Damborenea . These facts remind us of a naive question of how the characteristics of the initial wave packet affect the long time behavior of the wave packet or related quantities such as the survival $`S(t)`$ and nonescape $`P(t)`$ probabilities. The former stands for the probability of a state still being in the initial state at a later time $`t`$. It is widely used for the decaying systems (see, e.g., Refs. Fonda ; Nakazato ; Garcia ; Dijk  and references therein). The latter is the probability to find a particle in a specific region under consideration at a later time $`t`$. It is also used to the decaying systems (see, e.g., Refs. Garcia ; Nussenzveig ; Muga ; Dijk ). Such a question for $`S(t)`$ was answered in the following sense. For a one dimensional free particle system, it was shown that $`S(t)`$ behaves asymptotically like $`t^{2m1}`$, when the initial wave packet in momentum representation behaves like $`k^m`$ near the zero momentum $`k=0`$ with an arbitrary nonnegative integer $`m`$ Miyamoto . Hence, as is pointed out in Ref. Damborenea , the small-momentum behavior of initial wave packet has a crucial role to determine the long-time behavior of the survival probability. However, such strict structures for the wave packet and the nonescape probability have not been clarified completely.

In this work, we consider the asymptotic behavior of a free wave packet $`\psi (x,t)`$ at long times for the one dimensional case, assuming as in Ref. Miyamoto  that the initial wave packet behaves like $`k^m`$ at small momentum. The asymptotic behavior is evaluated at every position $`x`$ unlike the studies in Refs. Unnikrishnan ; Lillo ; Mendes ; Damborenea . This advantage enables us to discuss whether the asymptotic behavior of the wave packet has the position dependence. In addition, we are able to calculate explicitly the asymptotic form of not only $`S(t)`$ but also $`P(t)`$ at long times SP . We then examine and clarify the difference between the long time behavior of the $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$, according to the small-momentum behavior of the initial states. Remark that a comparison between the long time behavior of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ was already made in Ref. Garcia  for the potential systems in another context, though the analysis therein was correct for $`S(t)`$, but not for $`P(t)`$. The correct result for $`P(t)`$ turned out to be the $`t^3`$ behavior (see, Ref. controversy  and references therein).

For the one-dimensional free particle system with the Hamiltonian $`H_0=(\mathrm{}^2/2M)d^2/dx^2`$, we here define the survival probability $`S(t)`$ of the initial state (wave packet) $`\psi `$ as

$$S(t):=|\psi ,e^{itH_0/\mathrm{}}\psi |^2=\left|_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\overline{\psi (x)}\psi (x,t)𝑑x\right|^2,$$
(1)
where $`\psi (x,t)=(e^{itH_0/\mathrm{}}\psi )(x)`$ and the bar ( $`\overline{}`$ ) denotes complex conjugate. $`\psi (x)`$ is assumed to be square integrable. $`S(t)`$ is the probability that the state at a later time $`t`$ is found in the initial one. We also define the nonescape probability $`P(t)`$ as the probability that a particle initially prepared in the state $`\psi `$ is found in a bounded interval $`[a,b]`$ on the line at a later time $`t`$,

$$P(t):=_a^b|\psi (x,t)|^2𝑑x.$$
(2)
In order to estimate the asymptotic behavior of $`\psi (x,t)`$, we first refer to the explicit solution to the Schrödinger equation,

$`\psi (x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}e^{ikx}e^{it\mathrm{}k^2/2M}\widehat{\psi }(k)𝑑k,`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{2\pi i\mathrm{}t}}\right)^{1/2}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}e^{iM|xy|^2/2\mathrm{}t}\psi (y)𝑑y,`$ (4)
where $`k=p/\mathrm{}`$ and the $`\widehat{\psi }(k)`$ is the initial state in momentum representation. To see the long time behavior of the solution, one can consider the asymptotic expansion of the integral in Eq. (3), using the phase stationary method Olver  as used in Ref. Lillo ; Damborenea  or making an integration by parts for the Fourier integral Copson . Then the differential coefficients of $`\widehat{\psi }(k)`$ at $`k=0`$ naturally appear. However, to take account of the $`x`$-dependence in the asymptotic behavior of $`\psi (x,t)`$, it may be convenient for us to start with Eq. (4). Indeed, expansion of the exponential function in Eq. (4) immediately leads to the asymptotic behavior of $`\psi (x,t)`$ with the $`x`$-dependence. It reads

$$\psi (x,t)\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{j1}\mathrm{\Gamma }(j+1/2)}{\pi (i\mathrm{}t/2M)^{j+1/2}}(G_{2j}\psi )(x),$$
(5)
where $`G_j`$ is the integral operator Gj  defined by

$$(G_j\psi )(x):=\frac{1}{2(j!)}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}|xy|^j\psi (y)𝑑y.$$
(6)
Here we assume the exchange of the order of summation and integration to be allowed. Note that $`(G_{2j}\psi )(x)`$ in Eq. (5) can be described in terms of the differential coefficient of $`\widehat{\psi }(k)`$ at $`k=0`$ as same as the result reached from Eq. (3). This is seen from the following formal expansion of $`\widehat{\psi }(k)`$,

$`\widehat{\psi }(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}e^{iky}\psi (y)𝑑y`$ (7)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(ik)^j}{\sqrt{2\pi }j!}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}y^j\psi (y)𝑑y={\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{k^j}{j!}}\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0),`$
where $`\widehat{\psi }^{(0)}(0)=\widehat{\psi }(0)`$. This implies that

$$\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0)=\frac{d^j\widehat{\psi }(k)}{dk^j}|_{k=0}=\frac{(i)^j}{\sqrt{2\pi }}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}y^j\psi (y)𝑑y.$$
(8)
Then, we can rewrite the $`(G_{2j}\psi )(x)`$ in Eq. (6) for $`j=2j`$ as

$$(G_{2j}\psi )(x)=\frac{\sqrt{2\pi }}{2[(2j)!]}\underset{n=0}{\overset{2j}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2j}{n}\right)i^n\widehat{\psi }^{(n)}(0)(x)^{2jn}.$$
(9)
Substituting Eq. (5) into (1) and (2), we can obtain the asymptotic behaviors of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ at long times as,

$$S(t)\left|\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{j1}\mathrm{\Gamma }(j+1/2)}{\pi (i\mathrm{}t/2M)^{j+1/2}}\psi ,G_{2j}\psi \right|^2,$$
(10)
and

$$P(t)_a^b\left|\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{j1}\mathrm{\Gamma }(j+1/2)}{\pi (i\mathrm{}t/2M)^{j+1/2}}(G_{2j}\psi )(x)\right|^2𝑑x$$
(11)
respectively. In Eq. (10), $`\psi ,G_{2j}\psi `$ is also described in terms of the differential coefficients $`\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0)`$ as,

$$\psi ,G_{2j}\psi =\frac{(1)^{j1}\pi }{(2j)!}\underset{n=0}{\overset{2j}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2j}{n}\right)\overline{\widehat{\psi }^{(2jn)}(0)}\widehat{\psi }^{(n)}(0).$$
(12)
We now consider such a special case that the initial wave packet $`\psi (x)`$ satisfies

$$\widehat{\psi }(k)=O(k^m)\text{as }k0,$$
(13)
where $`m=1,2,\mathrm{}.`$ We notice from Eq. (7) that the condition (13) is equivalent to the condition

$$\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0)=0,\text{ for }j=0,1,\mathrm{},m1.$$
(14)
Note that the condition (14) causes the $`S(t)`$ to behave like $`t^{2m1}`$. To confirm this assertion, it suffices to show that the condition (14) implies the next condition

$$\psi ,G_{2j}\psi =0,\text{ for }j=0,1,\mathrm{},m1,$$
(15)
and vice versa Miyamoto . In fact, substitution of Eq. (15) into (10) surely leads to $`S(t)t^{2m1}`$. We briefly show the equivalence between the conditions (14) and (15). The fact that Eq. (14) implies Eq. (15) follows straightforwardly from Eq. (12). Conversely, if Eq. (15) holds, we have from $`\psi ,G_0\psi =0`$ that $`\widehat{\psi }^{(0)}(0)=0`$ \[see Eq. (12)\]. Then, we also have from $`\widehat{\psi }^{(0)}(0)=0`$ and $`\psi ,G_2\psi =0`$ that $`\widehat{\psi }^{(1)}(0)=0`$ \[see Eq. (12) again\]. As the same way, we can recursively show Eq. (14), and the proof is completed. Under the condition (14), we see that the first non-vanishing term $`\psi ,G_{2m}\psi `$ in the summation in Eq. (10) is reduced to

$$\psi ,G_{2m}\psi =\frac{(1)^{m1}\pi }{(m!)^2}|\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(0)|^2.$$
(16)
Then, we obtain the asymptotic behavior for $`S(t)`$ as Miyamoto

$$S(t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(m+1/2)^2}{(m!)^4(\mathrm{}t/2M)^{2m+1}}|\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(0)|^4+O(t^{2m2}).$$
(17)
Note that this formula is also seen to be valid for $`m=0`$. Let us now examine how the same condition (13) \[or (14)\] affects the asymptotic behavior of $`\psi (x,t)`$. Under the condition (14), we see that Eq. (9) reads

$$(G_{2j}\psi )(x)=0\text{ for all }x,$$
(18)
where $`j=0,1,\mathrm{},\overline{m}1`$. The $`\overline{m}1`$ is the largest integer satisfying $`2(\overline{m}1)m1`$, and the $`\overline{m}`$ turns out to be

$$\overline{m}=\{\begin{array}{cc}m/2\hfill & \text{for even }m\hfill \\ (m+1)/2\hfill & \text{for odd }m\hfill \end{array}.$$
(19)
Equation (18) consequently implies that the asymptotic expansion (5) for the wave packet reads

$$\psi (x,t)=\frac{(1)^{\overline{m}1}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{m}+1/2)}{\pi (i\mathrm{}t/2M)^{\overline{m}+1/2}}(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)+O(t^{\overline{m}3/2}),$$
(20)
as $`t\mathrm{}`$. One also see that this formula is valid for $`m=0`$. By using Eq. (14), the first non-vanishing term $`(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)`$ can be reduced to a simple expression as

$$(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)=\frac{\sqrt{2\pi }i^m}{2(m!)}\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(0),$$
(21)
for even $`m`$, or

$$(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)=\frac{\sqrt{2\pi }i^{m+1}}{2[(m+1)!]}[\widehat{\psi }^{(m+1)}(0)+i(m+1)x\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(0)],$$
(22)
for odd $`m`$. Substituting Eq. (20) into (2), we can also derive the asymptotic behavior for $`P(t)`$:

$$P(t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{m}+1/2)^2}{\pi ^2(\mathrm{}t/2M)^{2\overline{m}+1}}_a^b|(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)|^2𝑑x+O(t^{2\overline{m}2}),$$
(23)
as $`t\mathrm{}`$. The above formula is also expressed in terms of the differential coefficients $`\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0)`$, by using Eq. (21) \[or (22)\].

It is worth noting that, in the case of $`m`$ being odd, there is a possibility to find a special position, denoted by $`\xi _0`$, where $`(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)`$ in Eq. (22) vanishes. This means that at that position the $`\psi (x,t)`$ follows the power-law in the next order. However, this matter may be regarded as exceptional, because a point in the entire line has only zero-measure. From Eq. (22), $`\xi _0`$ is given by

$$\xi _0=i\widehat{\psi }^{(m+1)}(0)/[(m+1)\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(0)],$$
(24)
and must be real. We can find such a $`\xi _0`$ for the initial wave packet, e.g., $`N_mk^me^{a_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(kk_0)^2/2ix_0k}`$, where $`a_0>0`$, $`k_0`$, $`x_0`$ $``$, and $`N_m`$ being the normalization constant. In this case, the $`\xi _0`$ is given by $`x_0+ia_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}k_0`$. Then, it becomes real if and only if $`k_0=0`$, which leads to $`\xi _0=x_0`$, the center of the initial wave packet. Note that such a special position in Eq. (24) if any does not have an influence on the asymptotic form of $`P(t)`$, because $`P(t)`$ is obtained by the integral of $`|(G_{2\overline{m}}\psi )(x)|^2`$.

Let us now consider and compare the long time behavior of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$. We see from Eq. (19) that $`m`$ and $`\overline{m}`$ are different when $`m2`$, and this fact directly affects the long time behavior of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$. When the initial state $`\psi `$ satisfies $`\widehat{\psi }(k)=O(k^m)`$ with an arbitrary integer $`m2`$, $`S(t)`$ goes asymptotically like $`t^{2m1}`$, whereas $`P(t)`$ does like $`t^{m1}`$ for even $`m`$ or like $`t^{m2}`$ for odd $`m`$. For a large $`m`$, $`S(t)`$ decreases much faster than $`P(t)`$. We also see that $`\overline{m}=\overline{m+1}`$ for odd $`m`$. This means that, in the case of an odd integer $`m`$, unlike $`S(t)`$, $`P(t)`$ decreases in the same power law under both the conditions, $`\widehat{\psi }(k)=O(k^m)`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }(k)=O(k^{m+1})`$.

To illustrate the difference in the long time behavior of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$, we choose the three initial wave functions $`\varphi _0(x)`$, $`\varphi _1(x)`$, and $`\varphi _2(x)`$, defined by

$$\widehat{\varphi }_m(k)=N_mk^me^{a_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(kk_0)^2/2ix_0k},\text{ for }m=0,1,2.$$
(25)
These are the same ones considered after Eq. (24). They behave like $`\widehat{\varphi }_m(k)=O(k^m)`$ for small $`k`$. Figure 1 shows the time evolution of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$, and their asymptotic forms predicted by Eqs. (17) and (23). The initial states $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$ are used in Fig. 1 (a) and (b), respectively. It is clearly seen that in Fig. 1 (a) $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ behave asymptotically like $`t^1`$ at long times, and in Fig. 1 (b) like $`t^3`$. In these cases, the difference between the behavior of $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ is not found. On the other hand, we notice that in Fig. 2 $`S(t)`$ and $`P(t)`$ for the initial state $`\varphi _2`$ differ asymptotically at long times. The former behaves asymptotically like $`t^5`$, however the latter behaves like $`t^3`$. In our calculation, we have chosen a set of parameters $`k_0=0.0`$ and $`x_0=0.0`$ for the three initial states, and $`a/a_0=2.0`$ and $`b/a_0=2.0`$ for the interval $`[a,b]`$ for $`P(t)`$. Then, as is seen from Figs. 1 and 2, $`P(0)1`$, i.e., the initial states are well localized in the interval.

In conclusion, we have considered for every position the long time behavior of the wave packet moving freely in one dimension, according to the characteristics of the initial wave packet at small momentum. We then have found that the asymptotic power of $`t`$ obeyed by the wave packet is constant everywhere, at most excluding one position $`\xi _0`$. We also have obtained the asymptotic behavior of the nonescape probability at long times, and compared that of the survival and nonescape probabilities. It is of interest that they can decrease in the different power laws depending on the initial states, in spite of the apparent similarity between their physical meanings. Our derivation can be easily extended to an arbitrary dimension, by starting with Eq. (4) in a corresponding dimension. In these analyses, we assume that the exchange of the order of summation and integration is admitted in the formal expansions in Eqs. (5) and (7). Indeed, this assumption can be rigorously guaranteed, when we make the same discussion with the finite series involving an appropriate remainder, instead of Eqs. (5) and (7). In any such procedure to keep the validity of the formula, e.g., (20), what should be satisfied at least is that all of the differential coefficient $`\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(0)`$ with $`j`$ up to $`m`$ (or $`m+1`$) is finite for even $`m`$ (or odd $`m`$). See Eq. (21) \[or (22)\]. It should be noted that this condition also implicitly implies that $`lim_{k+0}\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(k)=lim_{k0}\widehat{\psi }^{(j)}(k)`$ for $`j=0,1,\mathrm{},m`$ (or $`m+1`$). These conditions are satisfied by those $`\psi `$’s who are rapidly decreasing functions as in Eq. (25). However, such a circumstance is not always valid for an arbitrary initial wave packet, e.g., the wave packet with the power-law tail Unnikrishnan ; Lillo ; Mendes  or that treated in Ref. Damborenea . The former causes $`|\widehat{\psi }(0)|=\mathrm{}`$ and the latter does $`lim_{k+0}\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(k)lim_{k0}\widehat{\psi }^{(m)}(k)`$. It is then significant to consider how our results are modified for such initial wave packets. Furthermore, it is important to extend our consideration to the potential systems. In particular, it is relevant to examine in that case the possible influence of the characteristics of the initial states in the long time behavior of the survival and nonescape probabilities. In fact, such an attempt has not been done in previous investigations. An extension may be realized by starting, instead of Eq. (5), with the asymptotic expansion of the wave packet at long times for the short-range potential systems, attained by several methods (see, for example, Refs. Garcia ; Muga ; Dijk ; Rauch  and references therein).

The author would like to thank Professor I. Ohba and Professor H. Nakazato for useful and helpful discussions, and Professor J. G. Muga and the referees for valuable comments.