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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Cosmic strings are a class of solutions  which represent topological defects that may have been formed during phase transitions in the realm of the Early Universe . The GUT defects carry a large energy density and, hence, are of interest in Cosmology, as potential sources for primordial density perturbations. These fluctuations would leave their imprint in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR); a prediction not fully ruled out by COBE satellite observations yet; so, they would act as seeds for structure formation and consequently builders of the largest-scale structures in the Universe, such as the very high redshift superclusters of galaxies (as for instance the great wall). They may also help to explain the most energetic events in the Universe, like the cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and very high energy neutrinos, and gravitational-wave bursts and backgrounds. All these are issues deserving continuous investigation by many physicists nowadays .

Witten  has shown that cosmic strings may possess superconducting properties and may behave like both bosonic (see Ref.\[\] and references therein) and fermionic strings . The relevant superconductivity is generated during, or very soon after, the primary phase transition in which the string was formed.

A further question of much relevance concerns the consideration of gravitational effects on the formation of SCS’s. In this direction, it has already been discussed by several authors that torsion may have been an important element in the early Universe, when the quantum effects of gravitation were drastically important.

Our present understanding of the early Universe and the Planck era indicates that extended objects, like strings, are the best framework to describe the physics between the GUT and the Planckian scales . String corrections to Quantum Gravity lead to effective gravitational models where torsion plays a very relevant rôle through $`\alpha ^{}`$-corrections terms involving curvature and torsion . So, our viewpoint in this paper is that torsion effects are to be taken into account and are supposed to persist till the cosmic strings were formed.

The Universe in its very early era ($`10^{18}GeVT10^{16}GeV`$, the era before the GUT phase transition ) consisted of torsion particles and GUT (SU(5)) particles (heavy fermions, gauge bosons and Higgs particles); torsion particles couple with intrinsic spins of matter. Therefore, this interaction appears in the era in which the gravitational interaction became important for microscopic systems, such as the very early universe.

In , to describe the space-time defects  in the early universe in an invariant form, the authors adopt a new topological invariant, obtained by means of the torsion tensor, to measure the size of defects and interpret them as the quantized dislocation flux in internal space. Related to these arguments, it may become a relevant issue to contemplate topological defects described by Superconducting Cosmic Strings (SCS) coupled torsion; they may be present as a relic in ours days.

Cartan torsion has been previously related to spinning cosmic strings  from quite distinct points of view. In particular, Soleng has studied the case in which the cosmic string can be identified with a cylinder filled in with an anisotropic fluid possessing an intrinsic spin polarized along the string symmetry axis. It was shown there that the spin angular momentum generates torsion as a natural consequence of extending Einstein’s theory to include Riemann-Cartan geometry. Such a spinning string exhibits interesting gravitational effects, including inertial dragging and the possible generation of closed time-like lines. Although that theory was consistently developed, one has not discussed neither the astrophysical nor cosmological constraints on the potential implications of its realization in Nature. Moreover, as it is easy to see from the Arkuszewski-Kopczyński-Ponomariev matching conditions (Eq.18 in Ref.), the spin (i.e., torsion) effects do not propagate outwards. This is, of course, due to the fact that the string is composed of an anisotropic spin-polarized fermionic fluid. Nonetheless, this property (spin effects propagation) manifests itself as a space-time metric, as stressed by the definition (coupling) introduced in the Eq.(6) of Soleng’s paper. Conversely, our model does exhibit propagation of torsion effects outwards, and this may be responsible for the appearance of new, unexpected phenomena, as discussed below. Far-reaching effects are possible because, to obtain a complete string solution, we need to introduce superconductivity, which allows us to relate the torsion field of our model to the vortex characterizing the defect.

Recently, Kleinert has pointed out a number of aspects and effects of torsion. In his work, the gravitational counterpart yields consistent results only for completely antisymmetric or gradient torsion. If one takes into account that even spinless particles experience a torsion-originated force, one might naturally expect them to be also source for torsion. In a line of works related to physical consequences of torsion, Kleinert shows that deviations from Einstein gravity’s effects may be attained if one adds to the gravity action a gradient term for torsion. According to these works, a good consistency test for gravity with torsion is the criterium that the torsion coupling to matter must be such that spinless particles run on autoparallel, rather than geodesic, trajectories. On the other hand, it is to be noticed that massless and massive gauge vector gauge bosons couple differently to torsion. To accommodate this fact with the mass generation via a Higgs mechanism, one avoids inconsistencies if the Higgs scalar runs along autoparallel trajectories.

In this work, we study the case of bosonic SCS’s in Riemann-Cartan space-time with coupling terms in the potential driving the string dynamics. We aim at dealing with more realistic models which may demand supersymmetry, an essential ingredient for Grand-Unified theories and string theories. Thus, we ought to combine both gravitational and spin degrees of freedom in the same formalism; thus, torsion is required.

The main-stream of this paper is as follows: we explore the physics of torsion coupling to cosmic strings in Section II. An external solution for the SCS metric in this scenario in presented in Section III, while in Section IV we derive the corresponding metric for the internal structure of the SCS by using the weak-field approximation. The complete solution of the SCCS is obtained in Section V, by using the joint conditions. In section VI, we obtain a neat expression for the deficit angle in this context. Two applications are provided in Section VII. It is shown that such a high intensity of the gravitational force from the screwed SCS (when compared with the one generated by a superconducting string) may have important effects on the dynamics of compact objects orbiting around it, and also on matter being accreted by the string itself.

## 2 Torsion coupling to cosmic strings

Here, we propose a consistent framework for the torsion field pervading a cosmic string and define the vortex configuration for this problem. We choose here to analyze the simplest case where torsion appears. In this line of reasoning, it is possible to describe torsion as a gradient-like field

$$S_{\mu \nu }^\lambda =\frac{1}{2}[\delta _\mu ^\lambda S_\nu \delta _\nu ^\lambda S_\mu ],$$
(2.1)
the affine connection being written as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\lambda \nu }^\alpha =\{_{\lambda \nu }^\alpha \}+S^\alpha g_{\lambda \nu }S_\lambda \delta _\nu ^\alpha ,$$
(2.2)
where $`S_\alpha =_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the only piece contributing to torsion, given in Eq.(2.1). Here, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-field is the source of torsion in the string.

We may consider a theory of gravitation possessing torsion by writing the part of the action $`I`$ stemming from the curvature scalar $`R`$ as:

$$I=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{16\pi G}R(\{\})\frac{\alpha }{2}_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }^\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }\right]+I_m,$$
(2.3)
where $`R(\{\})`$ is the curvature scalar of the Riemannian theory and $`I_m`$ is the matter action which describes the superconducting cosmic string. The coupling constant $`\alpha `$ will be specified with the help of COBE data.

We can study the SCS considering the Abelian Higgs model with two scalar fields, $`\varphi `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$. In this case, the action for all matter fields turns out to be:

$$I_m=d^4x\sqrt{g}[\frac{1}{2}D_\mu \varphi (D^\mu \varphi )^{}\frac{1}{2}D_\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }(D^\mu \mathrm{\Sigma })^{}\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}H_{\mu \nu }H^{\mu \nu }V(|\varphi |,|\mathrm{\Sigma }|,\mathrm{\Lambda })],$$
(2.4)
where $`D_\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }=(_\mu +ieA_\mu )\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`D_\mu \varphi =(_\mu +iqC_\mu )\varphi `$ are the covariant derivatives. The reason why the gauge fields do not minimally couple to torsion is well discussed in Refs.. The field strengths are defined as usually as $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$ and $`H_{\mu \nu }=_\mu C_\nu _\nu C_\mu `$, with $`A_\mu `$ and $`C_\nu `$ being the gauge fields.

The potential $`V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ triggering the symmetry breaking can be fixed by:

$$V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })=\frac{\lambda _\phi }{4}(\phi ^2\eta ^2)^2+f_{\phi \sigma }\phi ^2\sigma ^2+\frac{\lambda _\sigma }{4}\sigma ^4\frac{m_\sigma ^2}{2}\sigma ^2+l^2\sigma ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2,$$
(2.5)
where $`\lambda _\phi `$, $`\lambda _\sigma `$, $`f_{\phi \sigma }`$, $`m_\sigma `$ and $`l^2`$ are coupling constants. Constructed this manner, this potential possesses all the ingredients that make it viable the formation of a superconducting cosmic string, as it is well-stablished. In addition, it is extended to include a new term describing the interaction with the torsion field. The presence of this interaction term does not affect the appearance of the string ground states. However, it contribuites a torsion density in the string core due to the coupling with the charged particle flux.

The action of eq.(2.3) has a $`U(1)^{}\times U(1)`$ symmetry, where the $`U(1)^{}`$ group, associated with the $`\varphi `$-field, is broken by the vacuum and gives rise to vortices of the Nielsen-Olesen type

$$\begin{array}{cc}\varphi =\phi (r)e^{i\theta },\hfill & \\ C_\mu =\frac{1}{q}[P(r)1]\delta _\mu ^\theta ,\hfill & \end{array}$$
(2.6)
which are here written in cylindrical coordinates $`(t,r,\theta ,z)`$, where $`r0`$ and $`0\theta <2\pi `$. The boundary conditions for the fields $`\phi (r)`$ and $`P(r)`$ are the same as those of ordinary cosmic strings:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\begin{array}{cc}\phi (r)=\eta \hfill & r\mathrm{}\hfill \\ \phi (r)=0\hfill & r=0\hfill \end{array}\hfill & \begin{array}{cc}P(r)=0\hfill & r\mathrm{}\hfill \\ P(r)=1\hfill & r=0.\hfill \end{array}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.7)
The other $`U(1)`$\- symmetry, that we associate to electromagnetism, acts on the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$-field. This symmetry is not broken by the vacuum; however, it is broken in the interior of the defect. The $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$-field in the string core, where it acquires an expectation value, is responsible for a bosonic current being carried by the gauge field $`A_\mu `$. The only non-vanishing components of the gauge fields are $`A_z(r)`$ and $`A_t(r)`$, and the current-carrier phase may be expressed as $`\zeta (z,t)=\omega _1t\omega _2z`$. Notwithstanding, we focus only on the magnetic case . Their configurations are defined as:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Sigma }=\sigma (r)e^{i\zeta (z,t)},\hfill & \\ A_\mu =\frac{1}{e}[A(r)\frac{\zeta (z,t)}{z}]\delta _\mu ^z,\hfill & \end{array}$$
(2.8)
because of the rotational symmetry of the string itself. The fields responsible for the cosmic string superconductivity have the following boundary conditions:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\begin{array}{cc}\frac{d}{dr}\sigma (r)=0\hfill & r=0\hfill \\ \sigma (r)=0\hfill & r\mathrm{}\hfill \end{array}\hfill & \begin{array}{cc}A(r)0\hfill & r\mathrm{}\hfill \\ A(r)=1\hfill & r=0.\hfill \end{array}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.9)
Let us consider a SCS in a cylindrical coordinate system $`(t,r,\theta ,z)`$, so that $`r0`$ and $`0\theta <2\pi `$ with the metric defined in these coordinates as:

$$ds^2=e^{2(\gamma \psi )}(dt^2+dr^2)+\beta ^2e^{2\psi }d\theta ^2+e^{2\psi }dz^2,$$
(2.10)
where $`\gamma ,\psi `$ and $`\beta `$ depend only on $`r`$. We can write the Einstein-Cartan equations in a quasi-Einsteinian form:

$$G_\nu ^\mu (\{\})=8\pi G(2\alpha g^{\mu \alpha }_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\nu \mathrm{\Lambda }\alpha \delta _\nu ^\mu g^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\beta \mathrm{\Lambda }+T_\nu ^\mu )=8\pi G\stackrel{~}{T}_\nu ^\mu ,$$
(2.11)
where $`(\{\})`$ stands for Riemannian geometric objects, $`\delta _\nu ^\mu `$ and $`T_\nu ^\mu `$ correspond to the identity and energy-momentum tensors, respectively. The $`\stackrel{~}{T}_\nu ^\mu `$ tensor corresponds to an energy-momentum tensor containing the torsion field.

We have seen that the dependence upon torsion is represented, in the quasi-Einstenian form, by the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-field that has an equation of motion given by Eq.(2.18) below, whose solution shall be presented subsequently.

The SCS energy-momentum tensor is defined by

$$T_{(scs)\nu }^\mu =\frac{2}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta S_m}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }},$$
(2.12)
which yields:

$$\begin{array}{cc}T_{scst}^t=\hfill & \frac{1}{2}\{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2]+\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\beta ^2}\phi ^2P^2+e^{2\psi }\sigma ^2A^2+\hfill \\ & +\frac{e^{2(2\psi \gamma )}}{\beta ^2}(\frac{P^{}}{q})^2+e^{2\gamma }(\frac{A^{}}{e})^2+2V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.13)
$$\begin{array}{cc}T_{scsr}^r=\hfill & \frac{1}{2}\{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2]\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\beta ^2}\phi ^2P^2e^{2\psi }\sigma ^2A^2+\hfill \\ & +\frac{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}}{\beta ^2}(\frac{P^{}}{q})^2+e^{2\gamma }(\frac{A^{}}{e})^22V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })\}\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.14)
$$\begin{array}{cc}T_{scs\theta }^\theta =\hfill & \frac{1}{2}\{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2]\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\beta ^2}\phi ^2P^2+e^{2\psi }\sigma ^2A^2+\hfill \\ & \frac{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}}{\beta ^2}(\frac{P^{}}{q})^2+e^{2\gamma }(\frac{A^{}}{e})^2+2V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.15)
$$\begin{array}{cc}T_{scsz}^z=\hfill & \frac{1}{2}\{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2]+\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\beta ^2}\phi ^2P^2e^{2\psi }\sigma ^2A^2+\hfill \\ & +\frac{e^{2(\psi \gamma )}}{\beta ^2}(\frac{P^{}}{q})^2e^{2\gamma }(\frac{A^{}}{e})^2+2V(\phi ,\sigma ,\mathrm{\Lambda })\}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.16)
In the expression of eqs.(2.13-2.16) only the usual fields of the string are present. The Euler-Lagrange equations result from the variation of the Eq.(2.3) together with the conditions for the Nielsen-Olesen  vortex, Eqs.(2.6-2.8), and yield:

$$\phi ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{1}{r}\phi ^{}+\frac{\phi P^2}{r^2}\phi [\lambda _\phi (\phi ^2\eta ^2)+2f_{\phi \sigma }\sigma ^2]=0$$

$$\sigma ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{1}{r}\sigma ^{}+\sigma [A^2+(f_{\phi \sigma }\phi ^2+\lambda _\sigma \sigma ^2m_\sigma ^2+l^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)]=0$$

$$P^{\prime \prime }\frac{1}{r}P^{}q^2\phi ^2P=0,$$

$$A^{\prime \prime }+\frac{1}{r}A^{}e^2\sigma ^2A=0,$$
(2.17)
while the torsion wave equation is given by:

$$\mathrm{}_g\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{l^2}{\alpha }\sigma ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(2.18)
In the equations above, a prime denotes differentiation with respect to the radial coordinate $`r`$. The general solution for the SCS will be found in the weak-field approximation together with junction conditions for the external metric.

## 3 The external solution

Now, we go on solving the previous set of equations for an observer outside the SCS stressed by torsion focusing on the external metric which satisfies the constraint $`r_0r\mathrm{}`$. The external contribution to the energy-momentum of the string reads

$$𝒯_\nu ^\mu =\frac{1}{4}g^{\mu \alpha }g^{\beta \rho }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\nu \rho }\delta _\nu ^\mu g^{\sigma \alpha }g^{\beta \rho }F_{\sigma \beta }F_{\alpha \rho }.$$
(3.1)
This tensor is the external energy-momentum tensor of a SCS with no torsion. If we consider the asymptotic conditions, Eq.(2.7) and Eq.(2.9), we see that the only field that does not vanish is the $`A_\mu `$-field. This field is responsible for the conduction of the string current. The torsion contribution to the external energy-momentum tensor is given by

$$𝒯_{\nu _{tors}}^\mu =2\alpha g^{\mu \alpha }_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\nu \mathrm{\Lambda }\alpha \delta _\nu ^\mu g^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\beta \mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(3.2)
For this configuration, the energy-momentum tensor displays the following symmetry properties:

$$𝒯_t^t=𝒯_r^r=𝒯_\theta ^\theta =𝒯_z^z.$$
(3.3)
Then, the only one component of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in Eq.(2.18) to be solved is the $`r`$dependent function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(r)`$. The solution reads:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(r)=\lambda \mathrm{ln}(r/r_0).$$
(3.4)
The vacuum solution of Eqs.(2.11) are found from the symmetries Eq.(3.3). Hence the solutions of $`\beta (r)`$ and $`\gamma (r)`$ are given by

$$\beta =Br,\gamma =m^2\mathrm{ln}r/r_0.$$
(3.5)
To find the $`\psi `$-solution, we can use the condition:

$$R=2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2e^{2(\psi \gamma )}.$$
(3.6)
This condition is different from the usual one because the scalar curvature $`R`$ does not vanish, and opposely it is linked to the torsion-field $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Then, this condition has the same form as the one for a SCS in a scalar-tensor theory . By making use of solutions (3.4), (3.5), we find:

$$\psi =n\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)\mathrm{ln}\frac{(r/r_0)^{2n}+k}{(1+k)}.$$
(3.7)
Thus we see from the solutions of the SCCS Eqs.(3.5,3.7), that there exists a relationship between the parameters $`n,\lambda `$ and $`m`$ given by $`n^2=\lambda ^2+m^2`$.

With the above results, we find that the external metric for the SCS takes the form:

$$ds^2=\left(\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^{2n}W^2(r)\left[\left(\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^{2m^2}(dt^2+dr^2)+B^2r^2d\theta ^2\right]+\left(\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^{2n}\frac{1}{W^2(r)}dz^2,$$
(3.8)
with $`W(r)=[(r/r_0)^{2n}+k]/[1+k].`$

As it is clear, the external solution alone does not provide a complete description of the physical situation. We proceed hereafter to find the junction conditions to the internal metric,in order to obtain an appropriate accounting for the nature of the source and its effects on the surrounding space-time.

## 4 SCS solution: The weak-field approximation

Now, let us find the Einstein-Cartan solutions for a SCCS by considering the weak-field approximation. Thus, the space-time metric may be expanded in terms of a small parameter $`\epsilon `$ about the values $`g_{(0)\mu \nu }=diag(1,1,1,1)`$, then:

$$\begin{array}{cc}g_{\mu \nu }=g_{(0)\mu \nu }+\epsilon h_{\mu \nu },\hfill & \\ \stackrel{~}{T}_{\mu \nu }=\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)\mu \nu }+\epsilon \stackrel{~}{T}_{(1)\mu \nu }.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.1)
The $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\mu \nu }`$ tensor corresponds to the energy-momentum tensor in a space-time with no curvature. However, torsion is embeeded. $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(1)}{}^{}\mu \nu }`$ represents the part of the energy-momentum tensor containing curvature and torsion. Next we proceed to define some important quantities useful for the analysis to come.

The energy-momentum density and tension of the thin SCCS are given by:

$$\begin{array}{cc}U=2\pi _0^{r_0}\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}t}^tr𝑑r;\hfill & \\ T=2\pi _0^{r_0}\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}z}^zr𝑑r.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.2)
The remaining components follow as

$$\begin{array}{cc}X=2\pi _0^{r_0}\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^rr𝑑r;\hfill & \\ Y=2\pi _0^{r_0}\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\theta }^\theta r𝑑r.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.3)
The energy conservation in the weak-field approximation reduces to

$$r\frac{d\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^r}{dr}=(\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\theta }^\theta \stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^r),$$
(4.4)
where $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\mu \nu }`$ represents the trace of the energy-momentum tensor with torsion.

To compute the overall metric, we use the Einstein-Cartan equations in the quasi-Einsteinian Eq.(2.11), where it gets the form $`G^{\mu \nu }(\{\})=8\pi G\stackrel{~}{T}_{_{(0)}}^{\mu \nu }`$ in the weak-field approximation, with the tensor $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\mu \nu }`$ (being first order in $`G`$) containing torsion. After integration, we have:

$$_0^{r_0}r𝑑r(\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\theta }^\theta +\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^r)=r_0^2\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^r(r_0)=r_0^2\left[\frac{A^2(r_0)}{2e^2}+\frac{\alpha }{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2(r_0)\right].$$
(4.5)
To find the internal energy-momentum tensor, it is more convenient to use Cartesian coordinates. For this purpose, we calculate the cross-section integrals of $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}x}^x`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}y}^y`$; in Cartesian coordinates, they read as below:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}x}^x=c[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2+\left(\frac{A^{}}{e}\right)^2+\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }^2]+s\frac{\phi ^2P^2}{r^2}+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{P^{}}{qr}\right)^2\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^2A^22V\hfill & \\ \stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}y}^y=s[\phi ^2+\sigma ^2+\left(\frac{A^{}}{e}\right)^2+\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }^2]+c\frac{\phi ^2P^2}{r^2}+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{P^{}}{qr}\right)^2\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^2A^22V,\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.6)
where $`c=\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \frac{1}{2}`$ and $`s=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \frac{1}{2}`$. We then find:

$$r𝑑r𝑑\theta \stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}x}^x=r𝑑r𝑑\theta \stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}y}^y=\pi r𝑑r[\left(\frac{P^{}}{qr}\right)^2\sigma ^2A^2V]=W.$$
(4.7)
Using the fact that $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}r}^r+\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\theta }^\theta =\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}x}^x+\stackrel{~}{T}_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}y}^y`$, then we have:

$$X+Y=2W=2\pi r_0^2\left[\frac{A^2(r_0)}{e^2}+\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }^2(r_0)\right],$$
(4.8)
which can be computed by integration of Eq.(2.17) so as to give

$$A^{}(r)=\frac{eJ}{\sqrt{2}\pi r},J=\sqrt{2}\pi e_0^{r_0}r𝑑r\sigma ^2A,$$
(4.9)
where $`J`$ is the current density. Thus, the torsion density can be computed by integration of Eq.(2.18)

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}=\frac{S}{\sqrt{2}\pi \alpha r},S=\sqrt{2}\pi l^2_0^{r_0}r𝑑r\sigma ^2\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(4.10)
where $`S`$ is the torsion density. With these considerations, we find the string structure. Then, we obtain

$$W=\frac{1}{2\pi }\left(J^2+\nu S^2\right).$$
(4.11)
with $`\nu =1/\alpha `$.

In addition, we can assume that the string is infinitely thin so that its stress-energy tensor is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_{string}^{\mu \nu }=diag[U,W,W,T]\delta (x)\delta (y).$$
(4.12)
Is worth noticing that definitions for both string energy $`U`$ and tension $`T`$, as in equations (4.2), already incorporate information about the torsion.

By virtue of the presence of the external current, we use the form Eq.(4.12) for the string energy-momentum tensor as well as Eq.(3.1) and Eq.(3.2) for the external energy-momentum tensor in linearized solution to zeroth order in G. In the sense of distributions we have,

$$\begin{array}{cc}^2ln(r/r_0)=2\pi \delta (x)\delta (y)\hfill & \\ ^2(\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0))^2=2/r^2\hfill & \\ ^2(r^2_i_jln(r/r_0))=4_i_jln(r/r_0).\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.13)
The energy-momentum tensor of the string source $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)\mu \nu }`$ (Cartesian coordinates) possesses no curvature, which is the well-known result , but does have torsion which produces the following energy-momentum tensor

$$\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)tt}=U\delta (x)\delta (y)+\frac{(J^2+\nu S^2)}{4\pi }^2\left(ln\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^2,\hfill & \\ \stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)zz}=T\delta (x)\delta (y)+\frac{(J^2\nu S^2)}{4\pi }^2\left(ln\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^2,\hfill & \\ \stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)ij}=(J^2+\nu S^2)\delta _{ij}\delta (x)\delta (y)\frac{(J^2+\nu S^2)}{2\pi }_i_jln(r/r_0),\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.14)
where the trace is given by $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)}=(U+TJ^2\nu S^2)\delta (x)\delta (y)\frac{\nu S^2}{2\pi }^2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^2`$ .

Now, let us find the matching conditions to the external solution. For this purpose, we shall use the linearized Einstein-Cartan equation in the form

$$^2h_{\mu \nu }=16\pi G(\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{{}_{(0)}{}^{}\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{T}_{(0)}).$$
(4.15)
The internal solution to Eq.(4.15) with time-independent source yields:

$$\begin{array}{cc}h_{tt}=4G[J^2(\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0))^2+(UT+J^2+\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)]\hfill & \\ h_{zz}=4G[J^2\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0))^2+(UTJ^2\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)]\hfill & \\ h_{ij}=\left[2G(J^2+\nu S^2)r^2_i_j4G\delta _{ij}(U+T+J^2+\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)\right]+S^2\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{r}{r_0}\right)^2.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(4.16)
This corresponds to the solution found in Cartesian coordinates. We note that the torsion appears explicitly in the transverse components of the metric. To analyze the solution for the with junction condition to the external metric, let us transform it back into cylindrical coordinates.

## 5 The Matching Conditions

It is possible to find the junction conditions for the external solution . In the case of a space-time with torsion, we may find the matching conditions using the fact that $`[\{_{\mu \nu }^\alpha \}]_{_{r=r_0}}^{(+)}=[\{_{\mu \nu }^\alpha \}]_{_{r=r_0}}^{()}`$, and the metricity constraint $`[_\rho g_{\mu \nu }]_{_{r=r_0}}^+=[_\rho g_{\mu \nu }]_{_{r=r_0}}^{}=0`$, to get the continuity conditions

$`[g_{\mu \nu }]_{_{r=r_0}}^{()}=[g_{\mu \nu }]_{_{r=r_0}}^{(+)},`$
$`[{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\mu \nu }}{x^\alpha }}]_{_{r=r_0}}^{(+)}+2[g_{\alpha \rho }K_{(\mu \nu )}^\rho ]_{_{r=r_0}}^{(+)}=[{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\mu \nu }}{x^\alpha }}]_{_{r=r_0}}^{()}+2[g_{\alpha \rho }K_{(\mu \nu )}^\rho ]_{_{r=r_0}}^{()},`$ (5.1)
where $`()`$ represents the internal region and $`(+)`$ corresponds the external region around $`r=r_0`$. In analyzing the junction conditions we notice that the contortion contributions do not appear neither in the internal nor in the external regions.

To match our solution with the external metric, we used the metric in cylindrical coordinates, which is obtained from the coordinate transformations:

$$r^2_i_jln(r/r_0)dx^idx^j=r^2d\theta ^2dr^2,$$
(5.2)
Unfortunately, for this goal we cannot use the metric the way it stands. Therefore, we have to change the radial coordinate to $`\rho `$, using the constraint (symmetry) $`g_{\rho \rho }=g_{tt}`$, to have, to first order in $`G`$,

$$\rho =r[1+a_1a_2\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)a_3(\mathrm{ln}(r/r_0)^2].$$
(5.3)
In this case, we have $`a_1=G(4U+J^2+\nu S^2)`$, $`a_2=4GU`$ and $`a_3=2G(J^2+\nu S^2)`$, which corresponds to the magnetic configuration of the string fields. The transformed metric yields:

$$\begin{array}{cc}g_{tt}=\{1+4G[J^2(\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))^2+(UT+J^2+\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)]\}=g_{\rho \rho }& \\ g_{zz}=\{14G[(J^2+\nu S^2)(\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))^2+(UT+J^2\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)]\}& \\ g_{\theta \theta }=\rho ^2\{18G(U+\frac{(J^2+\nu S^2)}{2})+4G(UTJ^2\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)]+4GJ^2(\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))^2\}.& \end{array}$$
(5.4)
Now, we are ready to find the external parameters $`B`$, $`n`$ and $`m`$ as functions of the source structure. If we consider the junction of the Eq.(5.1), after the linearization, and using the limit $`|n\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)|<<1`$, we have:

$$\begin{array}{cc}n\left(\frac{1k}{1+k}\right)=2G\left(UTJ^2\nu S^2\right)\hfill & \\ B^2=18G\left(U+\frac{(J^2+\nu S^2)}{2}\right)\hfill & \\ m^2=4G(J^2+\nu S^2).\hfill & \end{array}$$
(5.5)
Using the derivative of the expression Eq.(3.4) and the Eq.(4.10), we arrive at

$$\lambda =\stackrel{~}{G}S.$$
(5.6)
where $`\stackrel{~}{G}=\frac{\nu }{\sqrt{2}\pi }`$. This expression completes the derivation of the full metric components. In analyzing the metric of the SCS with torsion, we note that the contribution of torsion appears in the $`\theta \theta `$-metric component, which is important for astrophysical applications such as gravitational lensing studies, because this component is linked to the deficit angle.

## 6 Screw effect on the propagation of particles and light

In this section, we analyze the metric around a screwed superconducting cosmic string. Let us investigate the deficit angle. If we consider the metric Eqs.(5.4), projected into the space-time perpendicular to the string, i. e., $`dz=0`$, then we have:

$$ds_{}^2=(1h_{tt})[dt^2+dr^2+(1b)r^2d\theta ^2],$$
(6.1)
with $`h_{tt}`$ given by

$$h_{tt}=4G[J^2(\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))^2+(UT+J^2+\nu S^2)\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)]\}$$
(6.2)
Then, to first order in $`G`$, the deficit angle gets:

$$\delta \theta =b\pi =8\pi G\{U+\frac{J^2(1+\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\nu S^2(12\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0))\}.$$
(6.3)
We know that, when the string possesses current, there appear gravitational forces. We shall consider the effect that torsion plays on the gravitational force generated by SCS on a particle moving around the defect, assumed here the has partide no charge. We consider the particle speed $`|𝐯|1`$, condition under which the geodesic equation becomes:

$$\frac{d^2x^i}{d\tau ^2}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tt}^i=0,$$
(6.4)
where $`i`$ is the spatial coordinate, and the connection can be written as in Eq.(2.2)). The gravitational acceleration around the string gets the form

$$a=\frac{1}{2}(h_{tt}\stackrel{~}{G}\frac{S}{\rho }),$$
(6.5)
with $`g_{tt}=1h_{tt}`$ in Eq.(5.4). We also note that the gravitational pull is related to the $`h_{tt}`$ component that has explicit dependence on the torsion, as shown in Eq.(6.2). From the last equation, the force the SCCS exerts on a test particle can be explicitly written as

$$f=\frac{m}{\rho }\left[2GJ^2\left(1+\frac{(UT+\nu S^2)}{J^2}+2\mathrm{ln}(\rho /r_0)\right)+\stackrel{~}{G}S\right].$$
(6.6)
where $`m`$ is the mass of the particle.

Let us consider the deflection of particles moving in the geometry of the string. For that, we work with the metric in Cartesian coordinates,

$$ds^2=(1h_{tt})[dt^2dx^2dy^2],$$
(6.7)
with $`h_{tt}`$ given by (6.2), where for simplicity, we consider $`d_z=0`$. The linearized geodesic equations in this metric takes the form

$$2\ddot{x}=(1\dot{x}^2\dot{y}^2)_xh_{tt}+(1\dot{y}^2)_x\varphi $$
(6.8)
$$2\ddot{y}=(1\dot{x}^2\dot{y}^2)_yh_{tt}+(1\dot{x}^2)_y\varphi ,$$
(6.9)
with dots referring to derivatives with respect to t. To calculate the transverse velocity the particles acquire after passing by the string, we consider that the particles are flowing with initial velocity, $`v`$, and we can integrate over the unperturbed trajectory, $`x=vt`$ and $`y=y_0`$

The result is the velocity impulse in the $`y`$ direction after the string has passed. Then, particles enter the wake with a transverse velocity:

$$v_t=4\pi G(U+T+I^2+\nu S^2)v\gamma +\frac{4\pi \stackrel{~}{G}S}{v\gamma }.$$
(6.10)
The first term is the usual velocity impulse of the particles due to the deficit angle; the additional term is nothing but the torsion contribution.

A quick glance at the last equation may illustrate the essential role torsion eventually plays in the context of cosmic string. If torsion is present a new attractive gravitational force acts on test particles. According to Pogosian and Vachaspati, it is possible that wiggles may impart significant longitudinal velocities to string segments; a characteristic torsion also imprints the same effect, as we can verify with the help of (6.10). In this statement, we consider $`\nu `$ arbitrary, but, in the case $`\nu `$ is of the order of $`G`$, the contribution of the angular deficit is of second order in $`G`$, hence negligeable; the second contribution is of order of $`G`$, and may therefore have non-negligeable effects.

## 7 Conclusions and Remarks

It is possible that torsion may have had a physically relevant role during the early stages of the Universe’s evolution. Along these lines, torsion fields may be regarded as potential sources for dynamical stresses which, when coupled to other fundamental fields (the gravitational field, for instance ), might have had a significant contribution during the phase transitions leading to formation of topological defects, such as the SCSs we focused on here. It therefore seems a crucial issue to investigate basic models and scenarios involving cosmic defects within a context where torsion degrees of freedom are suitably accounted for. We showed that torsion has a small, but non-negligeable, contribution to the geodesic equation obtained from the contortion term.

From a physical point of view, this contribution is responsible for the appearance of an additional attractive force acting on a massive test-particle, as explained in Section 6; this attractive force is important to the accretion of matter by the wake; in such a situation, the screwed cosmic string behaves very much like wiggly cosmic strings, assuming, of course, the validity of the Pogosian and Vachaspati conclusion .

To incorporate the Pogosian and Vachaspati statement, we propose that their straight strings with small-scale structures ($`wiggles`$) may resemble the strings endowed with torsion in our picture (screwed strings). In so doing, we postulate that the small-scale structures existing in wiggly strings can be approximately scaled to the geometrical deformation torsion produces on ordinary strings. Admitting this premise leads us to the idea that the primordial spectrum of perturbations in the CMBR, as observed by COBE, may reasonably be reproduced if one uses the freedom in the parameter-space of numerical models of structure formation based on wiggly strings.

The shape of the matter (radiation) power spectrum can be obtained by following the evolution of a network of long ordinary straight strings interacting with the universe matter (radiation) content. A string evolves in such a way that its characteristic curvature radius at time $`t`$ is $`t`$ (the reader is addressed to Ref., and references therein, for an exhaustive discussion on this subject). Each string moves with typical speed $`v`$ through matter. The translational motion of a string creates a wedge-shaped wake. Once the wake forms, particles fall into it with transversal velocity, $`v_t8\pi G\mu v\gamma `$ (where $`\mu `$ is the linear mass density of the string, $`\gamma =(1v^2)^{1/2}`$), towards the plane behind the string . Test particles that do not collide travel a distance shorter than the wake width: $`v_t^2/2a_w4\pi G\mu t`$.

Now that we have already studied the wake formation, we are in a position to analyze the wake generating by screwed superconducting cosmic string. The study of the effects of a cosmic string passing through matter is of great importance to understand the current organization of matter in the Universe and in this context many authors have already considered this problem in General Realativity.

Massless particles (such as photons) will be deflected by an angle $`\delta \theta =4\pi G(U+T+I^2)`$ in the case where $`\stackrel{~}{G}G`$. From the observational point of view, it would be impossible to distinguish a screwed string from its General Relativity partner, just by considering effects based on deflection of light (i.e., double image effect, for instance). On the other hand, trajectories of massive particles will be affected by the torsion coupling (which generates by torsioned space-time). These results are compatible with the Kleinart conclusions already shown in the Introduction.

If the string is moving with normal velocity, $`v`$, through matter, a transversal velocity appears that is given by Eq.(6.10). We can see that there exists a new contribution to the transversal velocity $`v_t=\frac{4\pi \stackrel{~}{G}S}{v\gamma }`$ given by torsion. We saw that the propagation of photons is unaffected by a screwed superconducting cosmic string, and is only affected by the angular deficit. This result shows us that the effect of torsion on massive particles is qualitatively different from its effect on radiation; this aspect becomes especially relevant when calculating CMBR-anisotropy and the power spectrum as wiggly cosmic strings. One expects that this feature could help to partially by-pass the current difficulties in reconciling the COBE normalized matter power spectrum with the observational data in the cosmic string model.

Acknowledgments: The author is indebted to J. H. Mosquera-Cuesta and L.C.Garcia-de-Andrade for participation at an early stage of this work. Thanks are also due to J. A. Helayel-Neto and V. B. Bezerra for long discussions, suggestions and careful criticisms on the original manuscript of this paper. C.N.Pq.- Brazil is acknowledge for the Graduate fellowship.


text:
# Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores

## 1 Introduction

Dense cores in dark clouds have been extensively studied through observations of the inversion transition lines of ammonia (Myers & Benson (1983); Benson & Myers (1989), hereafter BM89) and other high density tracers, including CS (Zhou et al. (1989)), C2S (Suzuki et al. (1992)) and HC3N (Fuller & Myers (1993)). Molecular emission maps have improved our understanding of cloud structure and have given us insights on the initial conditions of the star forming process. It is now well established that low mass cores as mapped in NH3 lines are about 0.1 pc in size, have kinetic temperatures of about 10 K, and gas number density of $``$ 3$`\times `$104 cm-3 (BM89). Generally, cores have elongated maps with typical aspect ratio of 2 (Myers et al. (1991); Ryden (1996)). Goodman et al. (1993) used ammonia maps to measure velocity gradients; they found typical magnitudes between 0.3 and 4 km s-1 pc-1 and conclude that rotation is not energetically dominant in the support of cores.

The upgrade of the 37-m Haystack telescope 111Radio Astronomy observations at the Haystack Observatory of the Northeast Radio Observatory Corporation are supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. at 3 mm (Barvainis & Salah (1994)) enabled high spatial (and spectral) resolution observations of the molecular ion N2H+ towards those cores already studied in NH3 (Benson, Caselli & Myers (1998), hereafter BCM98). The J = 1 $``$ 0 rotational transition of diazenylium has been detected in most (94%) of the cores indicating that this species is widespread and easy to detect. Moreover, a good correlation between N2H+ and NH3 velocities and line widths indicates that the two species are probably tracing the same material. N2H+ is known to be a selective tracer of quiescent gas (Turner & Thaddeus (1977); Womack et al. (1992); Bachiller (1996)) and is particularly suitable for studying the structure and kinematics of cold star forming cores. Being an ion, diazenylium is also important to trace the ionized gas and to give information about the coupling between ions and neutrals in star–forming dense cores (BCM98). We point out that N2H+, formed through the ion–molecule reaction N2 \+ H$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{3}{}^{}`$ and mainly destroyed by CO and electrons, traces molecular nitrogen, N2, which is a major repository of nitrogen. N2H+ is thought to be a “late depleter” (Bergin & Langer (1997); Aikawa et al. (2001); Caselli et al. 2001b ) and so is a good tracer of dense core gas.

In this paper we present N2H+ maps of 57 low mass cloud cores made at the FCRAO 14–m antenna equipped with the QUARRY receiver (Erickson et al. (1992)). The list of objects is the same as in BCM98 and it includes all cores already mapped in NH3(1,1). The angular resolution of the present observations (54′′) is 1.5 times finer than the previous NH3 study, allowing a more detailed analysis of the morphology and internal motions of dense cores. Technical details of the observations made at FCRAO are reported in Sect. 2. Results and discussion of this mapping program, including integrated intensity maps, column density, size, and mass estimates, velocity gradients, intensity profiles, and the variation of line widths across the cores, are shown in Sect. 3. The main conclusions of this work are summarized in Sect. 5.

## 2 FCRAO Observations

The $`J`$ = 1$``$0 N2H+ observations were made in March and June 1995 and in March 1996 at the FCRAO 14 m telescope at New Salem, Massachusetts. We used the 15 element QUARRY receiver (Erickson et al. (1992)) and the autocorrelation spectrometer with a bandwidth of 20 MHz over 1024 channels, giving a spectral resolution of $``$20 kHz or 0.063 km s-1. The beam efficiency ($`\eta _\mathrm{B}`$) was 0.51 at 93 GHz (Pratap et al. (1997)) and the main beam width at half power (HPBW) was 54′′. The typical system temperature at 93 GHz was $``$500 K. The data were acquired in frequency–switching mode with a throw of 8 MHz and calibrated using the ambient load vane method. The rms pointing error, estimated by observing Venus and Mars, was $``$ 5′′.

## 3 Results and discussion

### 3.1 Integrated intensity maps

We have completed 13 Nyquist sampled maps (25′′ spacing) and 34 beam sampled maps (50′′ spacing) to intensity levels below half maximum. An additional 10 beam–sampled maps are not complete below the half maximum contour. Table 1 reports in columns 2 and 3 the coordinates of the (0,0) map position. These do not always correspond to the coordinates quoted in BM89 because of recentering of the map to include all the emitting region. The peak position is reported in columns 4 and 5 as offsets from the (0,0) coordinates. In column 6, the one–sigma level of the noise in the off-line channels (in antenna temperature units) is listed. The integrated intensity of the emission at the map peak is in column 7; the error on the integrated intensity is $`\sigma _\mathrm{I}`$ = $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_\mathrm{A}^{}`$ $`\times `$ $`\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{ch}}}`$ $`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{res}}`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ is the number of channels in the integrated intensity (listed in column 8), and $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{res}}`$ (= 0.063 km s-1) is the velocity resolution. Column 9 of Tab. 1 indicates the map grid spacing: beam sampled maps (50′′ spacing) are indicated with a “B”, whereas Nyquist sampling (25′′ spacing) is marked by an “N”. The size of the mapped area is given in column 10. The association with an IRAS source is indicated in column 11.

A sample of the $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$(1–0) data is shown in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, where the averaged spectrum, i.e. the sum of all the spectra inside the half maximum map contour, is presented for three starless cores (L1498, L1544, TMC–2) and three cores with stars (L1489, L1228, L1251E). The line profiles dramatically change from quiescent starless cores, such as L1498, to L1251E, the core with the most complex velocity structure (see Sect. 3.6). Integrated intensity maps are shown in Figure Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores. All the maps have the same angular scale and the contours are between 20% and 95% of the peak, in steps of 0.15 $`\times `$ the peak intensity. The mapped area is shown in the figure (the map type is reported in Tab. 1). IRAS sources associated with cores are marked with stars. The criteria of association are described in Jijina, Myers & Adams (1999).

### 3.2 Column density

The N2H+(1–0) line presents hyperfine structure (e.g. Caselli, Myers & Thaddeus (1995); BCM98) and the hfs fitting program in CLASS (Forveille, Guilloteau & Lucas (1989)), with the hyperfine frequencies adopted from Caselli et al. 1995, has been used to determine LSR velocities ($`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$), intrinsic line widths ($`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$), total optical depths ($`\tau _{\mathrm{TOT}}`$), and excitation temperatures ($`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$). These parameters are listed in Table 2 for the peak spectrum and the spectrum averaged inside the half maximum contour. Column 6 of Tab. 2 reports the N2H+ column density ($`N_{\mathrm{tot}}`$), which has been calculated following the procedure described in Caselli et al. 2001b 222The approximated method used by BCM98, which assumes $`J_\nu (T_{\mathrm{ex}})`$ = $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, with $`J_\nu (T)`$ the equivalent Rayleigh–Jeans temperature, underestimates the $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$ column density by a factor of about four compared to the present calculation.. In the case of optically thin emission, $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ = 5 K has been assumed to compute $`N_{\mathrm{tot}}`$. It is interesting to note that the peak column density averaged over the whole sample is (7$`\pm `$5)$`\times `$1012 cm-2, about three times smaller than the averaged column density in BCM98 (when the same method is applied). This discrepancy is probably due to the smaller beam of BCM98 observations (factor of 2) and suggests the presence of density structure in the studied cores (see Sect. 3.5).

BCM98 found good correlations between N2H+ and NH3 velocities and line widths, but no correlation between column densities of the two species. The authors claimed that this result may be due to the different spatial resolutions in the N2H+ and NH3 studies, and to the fact that N2H+ emission may have a different peak position. In this paper, the peak of the N2H+ emission has been determined and we can then compare the peak column densities reported in Tab. 1 with those of NH3. The result is shown in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresa, where only cores with $`N/\sigma _N`$ $`>`$ 2 have been included. Indeed, the entire sample does not show a significant correlation between $`N(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ and $`N(\mathrm{NH}_3)`$. The scatter may be due to the significant errors associated with N2H+ column densities, caused by the large uncertainties on the total optical depth probably related to the presence of excitation anomalies (e.g. Caselli et al. 1995). However, it is interesting to note that for starless cores the correlation between $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ column densities is significant (best–fit line in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresa):

$`N_{\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)\times 10^{12}`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pm 2)+(0.6\pm 0.3)N_{\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{NH}_3)\times 10^{14}\mathrm{cm}^2,`$ (1)
where the quantities following $`\pm `$ are 1–sigma uncertainties and where the linear correlation coefficient is $`cc`$ = 0.52. The presence of a young stellar object probably affects the chemistry in a way that differentiation between the two species starts to be evident. Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresa shows that in “$`\mathrm{NH}_3`$-rich starred” cores, the $`N(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)/N(\mathrm{NH}_3)`$ column density ratio is smaller than in the rest of the sample. This may indicate that the $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$(1–0) line is more optically thick and probably more affected by the lower density foreground material, so that a correct measurement of $`\tau `$ is difficult to obtain without a correct radiative transfer calculation.

The N2H+ integrated intensity is plotted versus the “equivalent” NH3 integrated intensity ($`T_\mathrm{A}\times \mathrm{\Delta }v`$) in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresb. Although the associated uncertainties are significantly smaller than in the case of column density (see Tab. 1), the dispersion is still large. As in the previous case, starless cores show a more significant correlation:

$`I_{\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ $`=`$ $`(0.4\pm 0.3)+(2.0\pm 0.7)(T_\mathrm{A}\times \mathrm{\Delta }v)_{\mathrm{starless},\mathrm{NH}_3}\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1,cc=0.67.`$ (2)
In Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresc, N2H+ and NH3 excitation temperatures are plotted. Once again, the correlation is strong for starless cores:

$`T_{\mathrm{ex},\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ $`=`$ $`(1.4\pm 0.8)+(0.4\pm 0.1)T_{\mathrm{ex},\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{NH}_3),`$ (3)
with $`cc`$ = 0.79 (dotted line in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud coresc), whereas no significant correlation is present in cores with stars. Typically, $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$(NH3) $`>`$ $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$(N2H+), which suggests that the critical density $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}`$(NH3) $`<`$ $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}`$(N2H+). In fact, $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}`$(N2H+) = 2$`\times `$105 cm-3 (Ungerechts et al. (1997)), about one order of magnitude larger than that of NH3 ($`2\times 10^4`$ cm-3; Swade (1989)).

Correlations between velocities and linewidths of the N2H+ and NH3 peak spectra are identical to those found in BCM98 and we will not further discuss them. This paper will concentrate on the structure and internal motions of individual cores.

### 3.3 Sizes and masses

Sizes of the mapped cores are listed in Tab. 3. The 2D gaussian fitting routine in GRAPHIC (Buisson et al. (2001)) has been used to find the position angle, the major and minor axis (see columns 2, 3, and 4, respectively). The reported source sizes have been corrected for beam size, i.e. we subtracted the gaussian beam size in quadrature for each dimension. Aspect ratios (column 5) range between 1.1 and 6.4 with mean $`\pm `$ standard deviation 2.0$`\pm `$0.9. The size $`r`$ in column 6 and 7 is the half power radius, given by the geometric mean of the semimajor and semiminor axis. Note that $`r`$ = $`R`$/2, where $`R`$ is the size listed in Table 5 of BM89. The cloud distance is reported in column 8. Comparing the size of N2H+ and NH3 cores with associated stars we find a good correlation ($`cc`$ = 0.8):

$`r_{\mathrm{star}}(\mathrm{NH}_3)`$ $`=`$ $`(0.02\pm 0.03)+(2.2\pm 0.4)r_{\mathrm{star}}(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)\mathrm{pc},`$ (4)
which indicates that the emission of the two molecules have similar morphology, despite the different beam sizes. The factor of 2 difference is probably due to differences in the critical density $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ of the two tracers since map sizes are already corrected for beam smoothing and the resolution ratio is 1.5, less than the typical ratio of radii, 1.8. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the above relation pertains to cores with stars, given that for starless cores we find:

$`r_{\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{NH}_3)`$ $`=`$ $`(0.01\pm 0.01)+(0.9\pm 0.3)r_{\mathrm{starless}}(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)\mathrm{pc}(cc=0.7)`$ (5)
These relations suggest that N2H+(1–0) is tracing higher density material than NH3(1,1), and that cores with stars are denser and more centrally condensed than starless cores. On the other hand, in starless cores, the two lines originate from the same regions. Figure Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores shows the distribution of N2H+ and NH3 core radii in (i) the entire sample, (ii) cores with stars, and (iii) starless cores; the two tracers span different size ranges only for cores with stars. On average, starless cores have smaller sizes than cores with stars. For 35 cores with stars, the N2H+ map radius $`r`$ has mean $`\pm `$ standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) 0.069$`\pm `$0.005 pc, while for 19 starless cores, $`<r>_{\mathrm{starless}}`$ = 0.054$`\pm `$0.005 pc.

The virial mass of an equivalent uniform density sphere:

$`M_{\mathrm{vir}}(\mathrm{M}_{})`$ $`=`$ $`210\times r(\mathrm{pc})\times \mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{m}^2(\mathrm{km}^2\mathrm{s}^2),`$ (6)
is listed in column 3 of Tab. 4. The corresponding number density $`n_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is in column 2. $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{m}`$ in eqn. 6 is the FWHM of the molecule of mean mass (2.33 amu, assuming gas with 90% of H2 and 10% He):

$`\mathrm{\Delta }v_\mathrm{m}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }v^2+8ln2{\displaystyle \frac{kT}{m_\mathrm{H}}}\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2.33}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}}}\right),`$ (7)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ is the intrinsic linewidth of the N2H+ peak spectrum (see Tab. 2), and $`m_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}`$ (= 29 amu) is the mass of the N2H+ molecule. Column 4 reports the N2H+ fractional abundance: $`X(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ = $`N(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)/N(\mathrm{H}_2)`$, where $`N(\mathrm{H}_2)`$ = (4/3) $`\times `$ ($`n_{\mathrm{vir}}`$/1.11) $`\times `$ $`r`$, and the factor 1.11 takes into account the difference between $`n_{\mathrm{vir}}`$, the “virial” number density of the molecule of mean mass, and $`n_{\mathrm{vir}}(\mathrm{H}_2)`$. The N2H+ column density used for estimating $`X(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ is the peak or the average column density, depending on the associated errors. The average value is $`<X(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)>`$ = (3$`\pm `$1)$`\times `$10-10, close to that found in BCM98.

Tab. 4 also gives in column 5 the volume density $`n_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, calculated from the ($`n_{\mathrm{ex}}/n_{\mathrm{cr}}^{}`$) ratio (see eqn. 8 below), where $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}^{}`$ is the critical density (corrected for trapping) of the N2H+(1–0) line; and in column 6 the “excitation” mass of a uniform core ($`M_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ = (4/3) $`\pi mn_{\mathrm{ex}}r^3`$). The quantity $`n_{\mathrm{ex}}/n_{\mathrm{cr}}^{}`$ has been obtained by using the expression for two–level statistical equilibrium (Genzel (1992)):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_{\mathrm{ex}}}{n_{\mathrm{cr}}^{}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{ex}}\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{cb}}}{\frac{h\nu }{k}\left(1\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{ex}}}{\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{kin}}}\right)}}`$ (8)
where $`\nu `$ is the transition frequency, $`h`$ and $`k`$ are the constants of Planck and Boltzmann, respectively,

$`n_{\mathrm{cr}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`n_{\mathrm{cr}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{1exp(\tau )}{\tau }},`$ (9)
and

$`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{h\nu }{k}}\right)\left(1exp\left({\displaystyle \frac{h\nu }{kT}}\right)\right)^1.`$ (10)
In eqn. 9, $`\tau `$ is the optical depth of a “typical” hyperfine component ($``$ $`\tau _{\mathrm{TOT}}`$/9). $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, $`T_{\mathrm{cb}}`$, and $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ in eqn. 8 are the excitation, the cosmic background, and the kinetic temperatures, respectively. We assumed $`T_{\mathrm{cb}}`$ = 2.7 K, $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ = 10 K (see BM89), whereas $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ is the excitation temperature of the averaged spectrum (see Tab. 2). The error on $`n_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ is obtained by propagating the error associated with $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and $`\tau `$ into eqn. 8 (see Appendix A).

In Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ is plotted as a function of $`M_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ for the whole sample (with the exception of cores with (i) $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}/\sigma _{M_{\mathrm{ex}}}`$ or $`M_{\mathrm{vir}}/\sigma _{M_{\mathrm{vir}}}`$ $`<`$ 2, (ii) assumed excitation temperature, and (iii) deconvolved size less than the beam size, as in the case of B335). In average, starless cores are less massive than cores with stars: $`<M_{\mathrm{vir}}>_{\mathrm{star}}`$ = 9$`\pm `$3 M, $`<M_{\mathrm{vir}}>_{\mathrm{starless}}`$ = 3.3$`\pm `$0.4 M. However, there is not significant difference in the $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}/M_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ ratio between the two classes of cores (in average $`<M_{\mathrm{ex}}/M_{\mathrm{vir}}>_{\mathrm{star}}`$ = 1.4$`\pm `$0.3, and $`<M_{\mathrm{ex}}/M_{\mathrm{vir}}>_{\mathrm{starless}}`$ = 1.3$`\pm `$0.3). We note that the assumption of a uniform density sphere to estimate the virial mass is a very crude one. In Sect. 3.5 we will show that spheroidal cores are consistent with density profiles of the form $`n(r)`$ $``$ $`r^\alpha `$, with $`<\alpha >`$ $``$ 2, although most of the starless cores present “central flattening”, at impact parameters $`b`$ $``$ 5000 AU. If cores were approximated with singular isothermal spheres, our virial mass estimates should be reduced by a factor of 1.6.

### 3.4 Velocity Gradients

Following Goodman et al. (1993) (hereafter GBF93), a least squares fitting of a velocity gradient has been performed in all the cores with at least 9 positions with a good determination of the LSR velocity $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$. In Table 5, the magnitude of the velocity gradient $`𝒢`$ and its direction ($`\theta _𝒢`$, the direction of increasing velocity, measured east of north) are reported in column 3 and 4, respectively; the number of velocity points used in the fit is in column 2; the product between $`𝒢`$ and the core size $`r`$, or the typical velocity shift across the map, is in column 5; the ratio $`\beta `$ of rotational kinetic energy to gravitational energy (see eqn. (6) in GBF93) is shown in column 6.

For thirteen of the cores in Tab. 5, the same quantities have been calculated by GBF93 using NH3 maps (see their Table 2). By comparing the magnitude of the velocity gradient calculated from N2H+(1–0) and NH3(1,1) data ($`𝒢_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}`$ and $`𝒢_{\mathrm{NH}_3}`$, respectively) we found no correlation and the majority of the cores (with the exception of L1495 and L1251E) have $`𝒢_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}`$ $`>`$ $`𝒢_{\mathrm{NH}_3}`$, although the scatter is large (the average of the $`𝒢_{\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+}/𝒢_{\mathrm{NH}_3}`$ ratio $`\pm `$ standard deviation is 1.6$`\pm `$1.0). On the other hand, the correlation between $`\mathrm{\Theta }_𝒢(\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_𝒢(\mathrm{NH}_3)`$ is significant (cc = 0.7). The slightly larger magnitude of the velocity gradient in most of N2H+ cores probably reflects the finer spatial resolution of these observations compared to that for NH3. In fact, a larger beam will tend to smooth out $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ variations across the map. We note, however, that this also implies broader $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ lines, which are not observed (see end of Sect. 3.2 and BCM98). Finally, $`\beta `$ is similar in N2H+ and NH3 cores: in those cores which are in common in the two samples, the average value of $`\beta `$ is $``$ 0.02 from N2H+ data, and $``$ 0.03 from NH3 data.

Tab. 5 also lists the average value and its standard deviation (columns 7 and 8, respectively) of the fit residuals $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}(i)`$ \- $`V_{\mathrm{fit}}(i)`$ across the core, where $`V_{\mathrm{fit}}(i)`$ is the LSR velocity at position ($`\alpha (i)`$, $`\beta (i)`$) determined by the least square fit of a linear velocity gradient. These quantities are useful to describe the more complex motions in the core and will be discussed in section 3.6.

For 12 cores it has also been possible to determine the magnitude and the direction of “local” velocity gradients, i.e. variations of $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ in portions of a cloud core. The selected cores have at least 12 observed positions where the determination of $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ is possible via hfs fitting (see Sect. 3.2). In each of these cores, the least square fitting routine to determine $`𝒢`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_𝒢`$ has been successively applied to adjacent grids of 3$`\times `$3 points spaced by $`35^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`71^{\prime \prime }`$ (depending on the map type; see Tab. 1, column 8). Incomplete grids of at least 7 points have also been included in the computation of “local” velocity gradients. The results are shown in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, for the 12 selected cores, together with the “global” velocity gradient. The arrows point toward increasing $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$. From the figure it is evident that many cores present internal variations of the magnitude and direction of the velocity gradient (see, in particular, L1228 and L1251E), which illustrates the presence of complex motions not interpretable as simple solid body rotation of the whole core.

The velocity gradient maps of Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores show a wide range of structure which departs from the uniform rotation model used by GBF93 to analyse the velocities of the corresponding NH3 maps which generally had fewer data points than do the present N2H+ maps. Of the 9 maps in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores having at least 5 velocity gradient vectors, only 2 – L1512 and L1221 – have velocity gradient maps which are nearly uniform in both magnitude and direction, indicating simple uniform rotation. The rest show patterns which are fairly uniform in magnitude but not direction (L183, L1544), uniform in direction but not magnitude (L483), or which have significant variation in both magnitude and direction (L1228, L1251E, L43, and L1498). The most complex pattern is in L1251E, which shows distinct reversal of gradient direction between the East and West parts of the core. The departures from uniform rotation are most pronounced in the cores having associated YSOs and outflows (L483, L43, L1228, and L1251E). But substantial departures are also evident in the starless cores L183, L1544, and L1498 – which show evidence of contracting motion in CS(2–1) (Tafalla et al. (1998); Lee, Myers & Tafalla (1999), 2000), although HCO+(3–2) lines show no infall asymmetry toward L1498 (Gregersen & Evans (2000)). These results are consistent with a picture where simple uniform core rotation is rare, where more turbulent motions are relatively common, and where such turbulence is associated with cores with YSOs and outflows or with starless cores having evidence of inward flows. An interpretation of dense core velocity gradients in terms of turbulent motions was recently presented by Burkert & Bodenheimer (2000).

We note that cores with complex velocity gradient maps should be poorly fit by a simple model of uniform rotation, and inspection of the “normalized” standard deviation of the fit residuals $`s_{<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>}/(𝒢\times r)`$, as well as $`s_{<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>}`$ (see Tab. 5), bears out this expectation. The most uniform pattern of gradient vectors, for L1512 (Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores), corresponds to one of the smallest “normalized” fit residuals, 0.3, while the most complex pattern, for L1251E, has one of the largest $`s_{<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>}/(𝒢\times r`$), 2.4 (and the largest $`s_{<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>}`$, 0.36 km s-1). The “normalized” standard deviation relative to L1498 lies between L1512 and L1544. This suggests that L1498 is probably in an evolutionary stage later than the “static” core L1512 and earlier than the collapsing L1544. In fact, L1498 has been described as an extremely quiescent core (Lemme et al. (1995), Wolkovitch et al. (1997)) with evidence of slow contraction, outer envelope growth and strong chemical differentiations (Kuiper, Langer & Velusamy (1996); Tafalla et al. (2001)). Large values of $`s_{<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>}/𝒢\times r`$ ($``$ 1) are also present in TMC–2, an infall candidate with CS asymmetry (Lee, Myers & Tafalla (2000)).

### 3.5 Integrated intensity profiles

The “standard model” of isolated star formation (Shu, Adams, & Lizano (1987)) states that cores lose magnetic support by ambipolar diffusion until they become so concentrated that the central regions are gravitationally unstable and start to collapse. The collapse of the central region deprives the above layers of pressure support and causes them to also fall towards the center. In this way, gravitational collapse propagates from the inside out and continues until the core runs out of mass or a powerful wind from the central star-disk system reverses the collapse and disperses the core.

Some critical parameters of the “standard model” are unconstrained. The two most crucial unknowns are the radial dependence of density and turbulent velocity (alternatively of magnetic field), which together determine how gravitational collapse occurs. For example, a change in the density power law from $`r^2`$ (isothermal sphere, Shu (1977)) to $`r^1`$ (logotropic sphere, McLaughlin & Pudritz (1996)), changes completely the core star forming properties (McLaughlin & Pudritz (1997)), and our observations are not fine enough at this point to rule out any of these options. In fact, our ignorance of these basic core properties constitutes the most serious limitation in our understanding of how stars form in isolated dense cores.

From submillimeter continuum dust emission, Ward–Thompson et al. (1994) found that the radial density profiles of pre–stellar cores are significantly different from the singular isothermal sphere, and qualitatively consistent with models of magnetically–supported cores undergoing ambipolar diffusion (e.g. Ciolek & Mouschovias (1995)). Typically, the radial density profile inferred assuming a constant dust temperature is as flat as $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^\alpha `$, with $`\alpha `$ $``$ 0.4–1.2, depending on the core shape, at radii less than $``$ 4000 AU, and approaches $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^2`$ only between $``$ 4000 AU and $``$ 15000 AU (André, Ward–Thompson & Motte (1996); Ward–Thompson, Motte, & André (1999); Alves et al. (2001)). However, recent model calculations of the dust temperature in pre–stellar cores (Zucconi et al. (2001); Evans et al. (2001)) predict a temperature gradient, with a drop from $``$ 14 K at the edges to $``$ 7 K at the centers, which implies more peaked density distributions than in the isothermal case. On the other hand, millimeter continuum observations of circumstellar envelopes of low–mass protostars are in good agreement with the standard protostellar model of Shu et al. (1987), with power–law density gradients such as $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^2`$ or $`r^{1.5}`$ (Motte & André (2000)).

N2H+(1–0) maps can be used to investigate the column density structure of dense cores and make comparisons with results from submillimeter maps. We already noted (see Sect. 3.2) that the uncertainty associated with N2H+ column density is quite large, especially for low sensitivity spectra (such as those away from the map peak), because of the difficulty in determining an accurate value of the total optical depth of the J=1–0 transition. Therefore, instead of using N2H+ column density profiles, we made plots of the N2H+(1–0) intensity integrated below the seven hyperfine components as a function of impact parameter. The use of integrated intensity may be dangerous in those cases where the optical depth is large (when the column density is no longer simply proportional to the integrated intensity), but we will see that our conclusions are not affected by this problem.

The integrated intensity profiles of spheroidal cores (with aspect ratio $``$ 2, see Tab. 3) have been fitted using two models. Model 1 consists of a spherically symmetric cloud model with a density profile $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^\alpha `$. The resultant intensity profile vs. impact parameter $`b`$ ($`I`$ $``$ $`b^p`$, with $`p`$ = $`\alpha 1`$), has been convolved with a 2D Gaussian, with FWHM equal to the FCRAO beam (54′′). For each core, we change the value of $`p`$ from 0.5 to 2.0, in steps of 0.1, and find the best $`\chi ^2`$ convolved profile and the corresponding $`\alpha `$ value. Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores (thin curves) and Tab. 6 (columns 2 and 3) show the results of this procedure.

Model 2 considers a spherically symmetric cloud with a radial density profile inferred from submillimeter continuum observations of spheroidal cores, with $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^{1.2}`$ at $`r<r_{\mathrm{break}}`$, and $`\rho (r)`$ $``$ $`r^2`$ at $`r>r_{\mathrm{break}}`$ (see e.g. André, Ward–Thompson & Barsony (2000)). The two profiles have been convolved with the FCRAO beam and joined at $`r_{\mathrm{break}}`$. We run several models with different values of impact parameter at the break ($`b_{\mathrm{break}}`$ from 10′′ to 100′′, in steps of 5′′). From the $`\chi ^2`$ minimization, we determined $`b_{\mathrm{break}}`$ for each core (see column 4 of Tab. 6). Model 2 profiles are shown in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores by the dashed curves.

The comparison between the $`\chi ^2`$ values of Model 1 and 2 (columns 3 and 5 of Tab. 6) allows one to find the appropriate model density profile for each object. It is interesting to note that most (6 out of 9) of the cores with stars are best fitted with single power laws. With the exception of Per 6, L1495, and L43, all cores with stars have $`b_{\mathrm{break}}`$ = 10′′ (the minimum value in Model 2), which is equivalent to having a single slope. Starless cores show a different behaviour: 6 out of 8 objects have intensity profiles consistent with central flattening at impact parameters less than $``$ 5000 AU. This is in good agreement with results from submillimeter continuum observations. These results are interpreted by Ward–Thompson, Motte, & André (1999) as indicating that the cores are probably magnetically–supported and evolving through ambipolar diffusion to star formation (e.g. Lizano & Shu (1989); Basu & Mouschovias (1995)). However, caution must be used with the above models because, as pointed out by André, Ward–Thompson & Motte (1996) and André, Ward–Thompson & Barsony (2000), they require fairly strong magnetic fields on parsec scales ($``$ 100 $`\mu `$m), difficult to reconcile with available Zeeman measurements (e.g. Crutcher (1999)). Higher spatial resolution observations are needed to make quantitative conclusions on the column and volume density structure of star forming cores and better constrain theory.

In cores with stars, $`\alpha `$ is typically greater than 2 (Tab. 6). This is probably due to an excitation temperature increase at the center caused by the presence of a sufficiently luminous protostar. A similar result (greater map “spikiness” of cores with stars over that of starless cores) was found by Mizuno et al. (1994) using H13CO+ data. From Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores we also note that the model integrated intensity tends to overestimate data points at large impact parameters. This reflects the fast drop in $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ caused by the density drop and it is well reproduced by Monte Carlo simulations. It is not related to the “sharp edges” found in isolated prestellar cores at radii $`>`$ 15000 AU (Bacmann et al. (2000)).

To check the effects of optical depth in the observed shallow profiles, in those cores with $`\tau _{\mathrm{TOT}}`$ 333$`\tau _{\mathrm{TOT}}`$ is the sum of the peak optical depths of the seven hyperfine components $`>`$ 10 (L1498, L1489, and L483) we made integrated intensity profiles by using the area below the thinnest hyperfine component of N2H+(1–0) having the least optical depth (F1,F = 1,0 $``$ 1,1; Caselli, Myers & Thaddeus (1995)). In Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, the dotted curves indicate these profiles, normalized so that the peak integrated intesity of the $`\mathrm{F}_1,\mathrm{F}`$ = $`1,0`$ $``$ $`1,1`$ component is the same as the peak integrated intensity of all the components. The dotted curves in the L1498, L1489, and L483 plots (Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores) closely follow the data points, suggesting that optical depth effects are not affecting our conclusions.

In summary, the radial density profiles of starless cores in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores present a consistent picture of “central flattening” where the shape of the profile is shallower at small radii than at large radii. The N2H+ integrated intensity profile is modelled by a spherically symmetric density law $`nr^\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ = 1.2 for $`r<r_{\mathrm{break}}`$ and $`\alpha `$ = 2.0 for $`r>r_{\mathrm{break}}`$ $``$ 0.03 pc. Cores with stars are better modelled with single power laws $`nr^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha `$ $``$ 2. These results are the first to show central flattening in a significant sample of molecular line maps. In contrast to dust continuum maps, these maps offer the prospect of relating core density structure to core turbulence structure, in more detailed studies to be made in the future. The agreement between dust and N2H+ profiles suggests that the molecular gas traced by the N2H+ line is not significantly depleted in relation to the dust, unlike CO and CS (Caselli et al. (1999); Caselli et al. 2001a ,b; Bergin et al. (2001); Tafalla et al. (2001)).

### 3.6 Variation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ across the cores

Goodman et al. (1998) described a physical picture of star–forming dense cores and their environs where the cores are “velocity coherent” regions of nearly constant line width. From NH3 maps, Barranco & Goodman (1998) found that within the interiors of dense cores, the line widths are roughly constant and appear to increase at the map edges. Although many theories of low mass star formation begin with an isothermal sphere having no turbulence (e.g. Shu (1977)), the line width inside the coherent cores is not purely thermal. A clearly measurable turbulent component remains even in these “coherent” regions (Fuller & Myers (1992); Caselli & Myers (1995)). The “transition to coherence” may occur because of a decrease in the magnetic field’s ability to control gas motions in regions of very low ionization (Mouschovias (1991); Myers (1997); Goodman et al. (1998); Myers (1998)).

We have made a similar study with our N2H+ maps in those cores having a sufficient number of high sensitivity spectra across the map to allow us to see systematic variations in line width, if they are present. In Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, integrated intensity contour maps of 9 cores selected to have at least 9 spectra with $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$/$`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}}`$ $``$ 3 and $`I/\sigma _\mathrm{I}`$ $``$ 5 are superposed on grey scale maps of line width (light grey indicates narrow lines). From the figure, it is evident that starless cores show a spotty pattern of low line width at central positions inside the integrated intensity half–maximum contour, whereas more internal structure is present in cores with stars. In fact, L43 (Bence et al. (1998)), L483 (Tafalla et al. (2000), Fuller & Wootten (2000), Park et al. (2000)) and L1228 (Tafalla & Myers (1997)) are associated with well known protostellar outflows, which may contribute to the broadening of N2H+ line widths. However, in starless cores, the broadest lines are often located at the edges of the map. The positions indicated by dots on the maps in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores are those where a good ($`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$/$`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$ $``$ 3) estimate of the intrinsic line width via hfs fitting was possible.

Another way of looking at core velocity structure is to consider plots similar to those shown by Goodman et al. (1998), where the intrinsic line width is reported as a function of the antenna temperature, which in turn is used as a measure of the distance from the peak of the map. Instead of using antenna temperature we consider the impact parameter $`b`$, already introduced in Sect. 3.5. In practice, at each map point $`i`$ we associate an “effective radius” $`b(i)`$ by counting the number of positions $`N_{\mathrm{mp}}`$ with integrated intensity $`I`$ equal or larger than $`I(i)`$, so that $`b`$ = $`\sqrt{(a\times N_{\mathrm{mp}})/\pi }`$, where $`a`$ is the area of the map pixel. Thus we can consider in more quantitative fashion how the line width varies with effective map radius. We point out that this way of looking at core coherence is equivalent to that described in Goodman et al. (1998) (we tried both methods for three cores and found essentially the same results), but this approach shows the dependence on size scale explicitly.

We first examine how core line widths vary with effective radius by fitting a simple linear relation between $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ and $`b`$. Table 7 (columns 2, 3, and 4) lists the intercept $`p`$, the slope $`q`$, and the correlation coefficient $`cc`$ of the linear least squares fit to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$$`b`$ data for each core (only those cores with at least 9 positions having $`\mathrm{\Delta }v/\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}}`$ 3 and $`I/\sigma _\mathrm{I}`$ $``$ 5 are included in the table). From Tab. 7, three classes of cores are recognized: a) cores with a “significant” ($`cc`$ $``$ 0.4) positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$$`b`$ correlation (L1498, L1495, L1524, L1400K, L260); b) cores with no significant correlation; and c) cores with a significant negative correlation (PER4, B5, TMC–1C2, L1174). Starless cores and cores with stars are found in all three classes. Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores shows some example of the three classes. Evidently the slight increase of single–tracer line width with effective map radius discussed by Goodman et al. (1998) is significant in a few cores, but these are not representative of the 22 cores in Tab. 7.

We next consider how the variation in line width relates to the mean line width, for all the usable spectra in the map. Columns 5 and 6 of Tab. 7, report for each core the average linewidth $`<\mathrm{\Delta }v>`$ = $`(1/M)\times _{i=1}^M\mathrm{\Delta }v(i)`$, with $`M`$ = number of positions in the map where $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ has been calculated), and the corresponding standard deviation of the sample population $`s_{<\mathrm{\Delta }v>}`$ ($``$ $`(1/\sqrt{M1})\times \sqrt{_{i=1}^M(\mathrm{\Delta }v_i<\mathrm{\Delta }v>)^2}`$ ). Note that $`<\mathrm{\Delta }v>`$ is different from $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ of the average spectrum given in Tab. 2. The corresponding errors are reported in Appendix A.

These data can be compared with a simple statistical model of “cells” or “zones” along the line of sight to estimate the “coherence length” or length over which the motions are correlated along the line of sight (Kleiner & Dickman (1987)). We assume that each cell moves as a coherent unit, with a velocity along the line of sight that follows a Gaussian probability distribution with the dispersion $`\sigma `$ equal to the nonthermal component of the overall velocity distribution that we see in the line profile ($`\sigma ^2`$ = $`\sigma _{\mathrm{NT}}^2`$ = $`\mathrm{\Delta }v^2/(8ln2)`$ \- $`kT/m_{\mathrm{obs}}`$, where $`k`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`T`$ is the kinetic temperature, and $`m_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is the mass of the observed molecule). Then from basic statistics we can write relations for the rms of the line width and the rms of the mean velocity:

$`\sigma _{<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}>}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}>}{\sqrt{N}}}`$ (11)
$`\sigma _{<v>}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}^2>}}{\sqrt{8ln2N}}}`$ (12)
where $`N`$ is the typical number of cells along the line of sight. Figure Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores shows $`\sigma _{<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}>}`$ versus $`<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}>`$. In the figure, thin lines represent eqn.( 11) for different $`N`$ values. A linear least square fit to the data, taking into account the errors on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}}`$, gives $`N`$ = 10, with a linear correlation coefficient $`cc`$ = 0.9.

Relation (12) is investigated in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, where the dispersion of the average velocity gradient fit residuals $`<V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}>`$ is plotted versus the rms of the nonthermal line width $`\sqrt{<\mathrm{\Delta }v_{\mathrm{NT}}^2>}`$. $`V_{\mathrm{fit}}`$ is the velocity predicted by fitting a first–order gradient, so that $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}V_{\mathrm{fit}}`$ can be used to analyse higher order structure in the velocity field. In this case, a linear least square fit to the data gives $`N`$ = 13, with $`cc`$ = 0.5. Only cores with at least 9 data points available to estimate means and standard deviations have been included in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores and Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores. L1251E has been excluded from the two figures because of the complex velocity structure clearly seen in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, suggestive of two adjacent cores rotating in almost opposite directions.

In each of Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores and Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores, there is a clear tendency for the “dispersion” quantity on the $`y`$–axis to correlate with the “mean” quantity on the $`x`$–axis. From this simple “cell” model we conclude that $`N`$ $``$ 10. Given that the length along the line of sight to which our observations are sensitive is comparable to the map diameter, typically 0.1 pc, then the “coherence length” deduced from our data is about 0.01 pc. This size scale is comparable to the “cutoff” wavelength below which Alfvén waves cannot propagate because the neutral–ion collision frequency in the neutral medium becomes comparable to or less than the wave frequency (McKee & Zweibel (1995); Goodman et al. (1998)):

$`\lambda _{\mathrm{cut}}(\mathrm{pc})`$ $`=`$ $`0.007{\displaystyle \frac{(B/10\mu \mathrm{G})}{(x_i/5\times 10^8)(n/10^5\mathrm{cm}^3)^{3/2}}},`$ (13)
where $`B`$ is the magnetic field strength, $`x_i`$ is the ionization fraction ($`n_i/n`$), and $`n`$ is the volume density of the molecule of mean mass (2.33 amu). The choice of $`B`$ $``$ 10 $`\mu `$G is based on the OH Zeeman measurements in L1544 (a core in our sample) of Crutcher & Troland (2000). At the typical densities of the observed cores ($``$ 105 $`\text{cm}^3`$, see Tab. 8), the ionization fraction is about 5$`\times `$10-8, if the standard relation between $`x_i`$ and $`n(\mathrm{H}_2)`$ is used ($`x_i`$ = 1.3 $`\times `$ 10-5 $`n(\mathrm{H}_2)^{0.5}`$, McKee (1989)444We note that Caselli et al. 2001b  have recently found a different $`x_i`$$`n(\mathrm{H}_2)`$ relation for the L1544 core: $`x_i`$ = 5.2$`\times `$10-6 $`n(\mathrm{H}_2)^{0.56}`$, which, at $`n(\mathrm{H}_2)`$ = 105 $`\text{cm}^3`$, implies an electron fraction of 8$`\times `$10-9, six times lower than that deduced from the “standard” relation. With this new value of $`x_i`$, the “typical” cutoff wavelength is about 0.001 pc.). Therefore, the “transition to coherence” may arise from insufficient wave coupling on size scales of $``$ 0.01 pc, as (i) proposed by Mouschovias (1991), (ii) elaborated by Myers (1997, 1998) as a reason why $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ line widths are nearly thermal and narrower than their surrounding $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ gas (as demonstrated by Fuller & Myers (1992) and Caselli & Myers (1995)), and (iii) suggested by Goodman et al. (1998) as a reason why core line widths are “coherent” – nearly constant in the interior of $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ maps. In general, the positive correlations shown in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores and Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores strongly suggest the presence of internal motions, not ascribed to simple solid-body rotation and probably due to turbulence, which broaden lines and contribute to line width and LSR velocity dispersion across the cores.

To further quantify the “coherence” of core line widths, we ask whether the “local” dispersion of line widths at radius near $`b`$, $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$, increases with $`b`$ in N2H+ cores. To answer this question, the standard deviation of the average $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ inside all the contour levels between 20% and 100% of the integrated intensity peak has been calculated (in steps determined by the following requirements: i) consecutive levels are associated with different impact parameters; ii) each level contains at least 5 positions). As with previous analysis, we only considered those positions where $`\mathrm{\Delta }v/\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }v}3`$ and $`I/\sigma _\mathrm{I}5`$. We then performed linear least square fits to the $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$$`b`$ data in each core and the results are listed in columns 7, 8, and 9 of Tab. 7. Note that all the cores (with the exception of L1495, L1536, and L1512) show a strong positive correlation between the two quantities, indicating that dispersion is indeed increasing with projected radius. We tested whether the general increase in $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$ with increasing $`b`$ could be due to the corresponding decrease in signal–to–noise (S/N) ratio with increasing $`b`$. We raised the threshold $`(I/\sigma _\mathrm{I})_{\mathrm{min}}`$ from 5 to 10 and repeated the linear lest–square fits as in Tab. 7 with smaller, lower–noise data sets. For the 12 surviving cores with enough data points (at least 9), the tendency for $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$ to increase with $`b`$ is evident in 5 starless cores – L1544, L183, TMC–1CS, TMC–1NH3, TMC–2 – and 5 cores with stars – L1489, L43, L1228, L1221, L1251E. The remaining two cores show a negative (L1512) and a null (L483) $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}b`$ correlation.

This analysis of 22 low–mass N2H+ cores indicates that the brightest part of a core map has nearly constant line width, typically 0.3–0.4 km s-1, while the surrounding positions with fainter emission have line widths with much greater variation. This confirms the conclusions of Barranco & Goodman (1998) based on 4 NH3 core maps. However, our data show no significant increase in N2H+ line width with effective map radius for the typical core, in contrast to the result of Barranco & Goodman (1998).

### 3.7 Map structure

The N2H+ maps presented in Fig. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds. XIV. N2H+(1–0) maps of dense cloud cores are generally similar in shape and orientation to the NH3 maps of BM89 and Ladd, Myers & Goodman (1994). This similarity is easily understood, since N2H+ and NH3 are closely related chemically (N2 is the precursor molecule for both species). In cores with stars, the factor of $``$ 2 smaller size of the N2H+ maps compared to its NH3 counterpart probably reflects both the higher critical density ($``$ 2$`\times `$105 cm-3 for N2H+ compared to $``$ 3$`\times `$104 cm-3 for NH3) and the finer angular resolution ($``$ 54′′ instead of $``$ 83′′) and sampling (25′′ or 50′′ instead of 60′′) used in the N2H+ observations.

To quantify the complexity of the projected map structure, we have counted the number of map ”peaks” and ”elongations” in each of the 59 N2H+ maps in this paper and in each of the 47 NH3 maps in BM89 and in Ladd, Myers & Goodman (1994). Here a ”peak” is a local maximum of integrated intensity which exceeds its surrounding valley by at least 3-sigma, and an ”elongation” is an extension from the position of a peak by at least one beam, which does not terminate in a new peak. We find that the N2H+ and NH3 maps have similar proportions of simple and complex structure. The fraction of ”simple” maps with single peaks and no elongation is 0.64 for NH3 and 0.70 for N2H+ . The fraction of maps with at least two peaks is 0.12 for NH3 and 0.07 for N2H+ . Because of small number statistics, these NH3 and N2H+ fractions are not significantly different. One might expect that more peaks per map would be seen in the finer-resolution N2H+ observations than in the coarser-resolution NH3 observations, but this is not the case. We interpret this result as arising from the fact that the N2H+ maps have both finer resolution and smaller spatial extent, each by about the same factor of 1.5. Thus some N2H+ maps show two peaks where the NH3 map shows one, but other N2H+ maps do not extend far enough to sense the second peak seen in the NH3 map. Although relatively few N2H+ maps have more than one local maximum (14 of 57), we note that most cases with double peaks have peak–to–peak separation of only 1–2 FWHM beam diameters. Therefore these core maps are nearly as “clumpy” as the map resolution allows.

### 3.8 Overview of core parameters

An overview of the parameters determined in previous sections is presented in Table 8, for cores with stars and starless cores separately. Although the dispersion in large, cores associated with young stellar objects are typically more turbulent (non–thermal line widths are about 1.5 times larger), have larger sizes (factor of $``$ 1.4), and are more massive (factor of $``$ 2), than starless cores. Other quantities ($`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, $`N_{\mathrm{TOT}}`$(N2H+ ), aspect ratio, $`𝒢`$, $`\beta `$, have very similar values in the two classes of cores, suggesting that there is not a definite separation between them, at least from the analysis of N2H+ (1–0) lines at the present angular resolution.

## 4 Conclusions

We have mapped 57 low mass cores in the rotational transition $`J`$ = 1$``$0 of the molecular ion N2H+, using the FCRAO antenna. This extensive mapping survey has allowed us to study physical properties of dense cores with an angular resolution about 1.5 times finer than previous ammonia maps from BM89. The main conclusions of this work are summarized below.

1. The excitation temperature of the N2H+ (1-0) line is typically $``$ 5 K, indicating that N2H+ lines are subthermally excited. The peak N2H+ column density averaged over the whole sample is $`N`$(N2H+ ) $``$ 7$`\times `$1012 cm-2, about two orders of magnitude less than $`N`$(NH3 ) (BM89). There is a positive correlation between N2H+ and NH3 column densities and excitation temperatures in starless cores, whereas in cores with stars the scatter is large and no significant correlations are found. Although this may partially be due to the difficulty in estimating the $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$(1–0) total optical depth, the lack of correlation in cores with stars suggests a different chemical evolution of $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ and $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$. However, the good correlations between LSR velocities and line widths in the entire sample, indicates that the two tracers generally originate from the same regions.

2. The mean aspect ratios of the mapped sources is $``$ 2. Starless cores have about the same linear sizes than those found with NH3 (1,1) maps. On the other hand, cores with stars have $`r`$(NH3 ) $``$ $`2\times r`$(N2H+ ). This gives evidence that cores associated with young stellar objects are more centrally concentrated than starless cores and that N2H+ (1–0) traces denser gas than NH3 (1,1).

3. In average, starless cores have virial and “excitation” masses $`M_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ $``$ $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ $``$ 3 M, and are less massive than cores with stars ($`M_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ $``$ $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ $``$ 8 M). The $`M_{\mathrm{ex}}`$/$`M_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ ratio averaged over the whole sample is $``$ 1.

4. Typical values of velocity gradient magnitudes are $``$ 2 km/s/pc, both in cores with stars and starless cores. If the gradient represents rotation, the ratio $`\beta `$ of rotational energy to gravitational energy ranges between $``$ 10-4 and 0.07 so that rotation is not significant in the support of the core. Maps of “local” velocity gradients reveal the presence of complex internal motions that deviate strongly from a simple model of solid body rotation of the whole core.

5. Six out of nine spheroidal starless cores present central flattening in the integrated intensity profile. This is consistent with a spherically symmetric density law $`n(r)`$ $``$ $`r^\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ = 1.2 for $`r`$ $`<`$ $`r_{\mathrm{break}}`$ and $`\alpha `$ = 2 for $`r`$ $`>`$ $`r_{\mathrm{break}}`$, with $`r_{\mathrm{break}}`$ $``$ 0.03 pc. Cores with stars are better modelled with single power law density profiles with $`\alpha `$ $`\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}`$ 2. These results are in qualitative agreement with submillimeter continuum observations, suggesting that N2H+ is not significantly depleted inside dense cores (unlike CO and CS).

6. Most N2H+ cores are “coherent” in having more uniform line widths in their bright interior than in their faint periphery, as seen earlier in NH3 observations. The fluctuations in line width also increase significantly with mean line width. However this sample shows no significant tendency for the line widths themselves to increase with map radius – a few cores have positive and negative trends, while most have no significant trend. For 20 of 26 cores, the standard deviation of the average line width, $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$, increases with $`b`$, indicating that core line widths vary more with increasing radius as previously found by Barranco & Goodman (1998) and Goodman et al. (1998) using ammonia data. Yet, line widths $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ positively correlate with the impact parameter $`b`$ in only 5 sources (L1498, L1495, L1524, L1400K, and L260). Four sources present negative correlations (PER4, B5, TMC–1C2, L1174). The remaining 17 cores do not show a significant $`\mathrm{\Delta }vb`$ correlation.

7. The “coherence length” deduced from our data is about 0.01 pc, comparable to the cutoff wavelength below which Alfvén waves cannot propagate. Thus, the “transition to coherence” may arise from a decay of turbulence in the innermost parts of the cores, due to insufficient wave coupling, on size scales of $``$ 0.01 pc.

8. Although $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$ maps have finer angular resolution than $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ maps, they do not show a more complex structure. The majority (70%) of the cores in our sample have “simple” $`\mathrm{N}_2\mathrm{H}^+`$ maps, with single peaks and no elongation. Most cases with double–peaks have peak–to–peak separation of only 1–2 FWHM beam diameters.

P.C. acknowledges support from ASI (grants ARS–96–66, ARS–98–116, and ARS–78–1999) and from MURST (project “Dust and Molecules in Astrophysical Environments). PJB acknowledges support from NSF AST 9417359 and The Bunting Institute at Radcliff College. P.C.M. acknowledges support from NASA Origins of Solar Systems Grant NAG5–6266.

## Appendix A Error expressions

The error on the volume density $`n_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ (see Sect. 3.3) is found by propagating the error in eqn.(8):

$`\sigma _{n_{\mathrm{ex}}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\left(n_{\mathrm{cr}}\sigma _{T_{\mathrm{ex}}}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{h\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{kin}}\left(\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{kin}}\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{cb}}\right)}{\left(\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{kin}}\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{ex}}\right)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{ex}}^2exp\left(hv/\left(kT_{\mathrm{ex}}\right)\right)}{T_{\mathrm{ex}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1e^{3\tau }}{3\tau }}\right)^2+\left(\sigma _\tau {\displaystyle \frac{n_{\mathrm{ex}}3\tau }{1e^{3\tau }}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{3\tau }\left(3\tau +1\right)1}{\tau }}\right)^2\right]^{1/2}`$ (A1)
The errors on the average line width $`<\mathrm{\Delta }v>`$ and the corresponding sample standard deviation $`s_{\mathrm{\Delta }v}`$ have been calculated with the following expressions (from the propagation of error):

$`\sigma _{<\mathrm{\Delta }v>}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{_i\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }v(i)}^2}}{N}},`$ (A2)
$`\sigma _{s_{<\mathrm{\Delta }v>}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{_i\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }v(i)}^2(\mathrm{\Delta }v(i)<\mathrm{\Delta }v>)^2}}{s_{<\mathrm{\Delta }v>}(N1)}}.`$ (A3)