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# 8B breakup in elastic and transfer reactions

## I Introduction

Many reaction formalisms have been developed to study stable and unstable nuclei in the last few years and applied to extract structure information from scattering processes. Often, there is an interplay between the structure information that should be extracted from the reaction data and the reaction process itself. Thus, in each case, in order to extract reliable structure information, the adequacy of the scattering formalism needs to be addressed in detail.

Of timely importance is the coupling to breakup states when the scattering process involves loosely bound nuclei. Early analysis of elastic scattering with deuterons have shown that it is important to include the couplings to the continuum Johnson and Soper (1970); Watanabe (1958). More recently, the analysis of scattering reactions of loosely bound nuclei has progressed beyond the collective optical model (OM) approach to a more microscopic treatment (i.e. Johnson et al. (1997) for elastic, Crespo and Thompson (2001) inelastic, Bertulani et al. (1995); Tostevin et al. (1998); Nunes and Thompson (1999); Tostevin et al. (2001) breakup and Timofeyuk and Johnson (1999) transfer reactions). In these approaches, the few body nature of the loosely bound nucleus is incorporated *ab initio* in the scattering model and the coupling to the breakup channels are either introduced explicitly Yahiro et al. (1982, 1986); Austern et al. (1987), effectively through polarization potentials Andrés et al. (1994, 1995) or to all orders Crespo and Johnson (1999); Moro et al. (2001).

The study of the coupling to the continuum in transfer processes with loosely bound nuclei is also of relevance for astrophysics. The asymptotic normalization coefficient (ANC) method Xu et al. (1994) has been put forward as an alternative way to obtain information about the low energy $`S`$-factors. This method uses the absolute normalization of a peripheral transfer reaction to determine the normalization of the vertices involved in the process. Its applicability depends crucially on the validity of the DWBA conventionally used. The main assumptions are that the transition amplitude for the transfer can be evaluated in Born approximation and that the incoming and outgoing elastic waves are properly described in terms of effective optical potentials. Typically, the optical potentials used in DWBA calculations are deduced from the analysis of entrance (and exit, whenever existent) elastic scattering data, to reduce the uncertainties of the ANCs extracted from the transfer Fernandes et al. (1999). The possibility of systematic errors in this method has been a source of concern Adelberger et al (1998). As a result, several tests have been performed to ensure its validity (see for example a comparison with direct measurements Gagliardi et al. (1999) or the extraction of the same information from a set of different reactions Fernandes et al. (2000)). Very recently, the importance of coupling to excited inelastic channels of the target was assessed Nunes and Mukhamedzhanov (2001) and results emphasize that care should be taken when choosing the target.

A significant number of the unmeasured capture reactions of interest in astrophysics involve nuclei on the drip line Pratzos and Harrisopulos (1998); Adelberger et al (1998). The proximity of threshold suggests that breakup channels may play a role in their reaction mechanism. These implications have not yet been evaluated for any of the transfer reactions used so far. A prime example is the extraction of $`S_{17}`$ from 14N(7Be,8B)13C at $`\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{lab}}`$=84 MeV Azhari et al. (1999a); Trache et al. (2000).

One of the reasons for 8B attracting much of the nuclear physics efforts is its relevance to astrophysics, namely to the solar neutrino problem Adelberger et al (1998). The first experiment performed with the aim of extracting an ANC for 8B was a $`(d,n)`$ reaction Liu et al (1996). Meanwhile two transfer reactions on medium mass targets were measured with the same aim: $`{}_{}{}^{10}\mathrm{B}(^7\mathrm{Be},^8\mathrm{B})^9\mathrm{Be}`$ Azhari et al. (1999a, b) and 14N(7Be,8B)13C Azhari et al. (1999a) both at $`\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{lab}}`$=84 MeV. The joint analysis of these reactions Azhari et al. (2001) provided an accuracy for $`S_{17}(0)`$ greater than that of the direct capture measurements Hammache et al. (2001). Coupled channel estimates Nunes and Mukhamedzhanov (2001) showed that the excited states of the target can have a strong influence when the target is 10B but not when 14N is used. Consequently, the $`S_{17}(0)`$ value extracted from 10B(7Be,8B)9Be should not be used without further inelastic studies, but the value extracted from 14N(7Be,8B)13C remains valid up to now. Until recently, $`S_{17}`$ extracted from both the transfer reaction of Azhari et al. (1999a) and the Coulomb Dissociation data Davids et al. (2001) were consistent with the direct capture measurements. However, the very recent direct capture data from Seattle Junghans et al. (2002) not only improves the accuracy, but provides a $`S_{17}(0)`$ $`30\%`$ larger than the previous values. Whilst differences within the direct capture data sets are being understood, all sources of possible systematic errors in the analysis of the data from indirect methods need to be checked. Given that, in 8B, the proton is bound by only 0.137 MeV, one can suspect that coupling to continuum states may play an important role in the reaction dynamics and affect the ANC results.

The aim of this work is thus to study consistently the effects of continuum couplings of 8B, both in the elastic scattering and the transfer process. In section II we discuss the formalism used in both kinds of processes. In section III we analyze the elastic scattering of 8B+13C and discuss the effects of coupling to the continuum in the calculated differential cross section. In section IV, we analyze the transfer reaction 14N(7Be,8B)13C using the CDCC-BA framework: Born approximation (BA) for the transfer couplings and Coupled Channel Continuum Discretization (CDCC) for the 8B continuum couplings. Finally in section V the conclusions of the work are drawn.

## II Theoretical framework

As mentioned previously, $`{}_{}{}^{8}\mathrm{B}`$ is a weakly bound system with a breakup $`p`$+7Be threshold close to the ground state. For many purposes this nucleus can be well described by a two cluster model in which the valence proton is coupled to a 7Be inert core (e.g. Esbensen and Bertsch (1996)). In order to include the 8B continuum states as intermediate steps in the elastic or transfer process we make use of the CDCC formalism Yahiro et al. (1982, 1986); Austern et al. (1987).

Consider the 3-body scattering problem of a composite nucleus $`A`$ = $`𝒞+v`$ impinging on a stable nucleus $`c`$. The full Hamiltonian for the problem is

$$H=h_c+h_A+T_\alpha +V_\alpha ,$$
(1)
where the Hamiltonian for the composite nucleus $`A`$ is $`h_A=T_{𝒞v}+V_{𝒞v}+h_𝒞+h_v`$ and $`V_\alpha `$ is the sum of interaction between the clusters and the stable nucleus $`c`$, $`V_\alpha =V_{c𝒞}+V_{vc}`$. Let $`r`$ be the $`vc`$ separation, and $`R`$ the projectile-target coordinate.

For simplicity, we ignore the internal spins in the notation, and consider only excitations of the projectile $`A`$. Keeping in mind the application to loosely bound nuclei, we assume that $`A`$ has only one bound state. Then $`h_A\varphi _0(r)=ϵ_0\varphi _0(r)`$ defines the ground state wavefunction and $`h_A\varphi _{\mathrm{}m,k}=ϵ_k\varphi _{\mathrm{}m,k}`$ defines the continuum states (labeled by the angular momentum $`\mathrm{}`$, its projection $`m`$, and the linear momentum, $`k`$).

The CDCC method makes a double truncation of the continuum in both energy and angular momentum, working in the subspace $`0kk_{max}`$ and $`0\mathrm{}\mathrm{}_{max}`$. Moreover, the excitation energy range is subdivided into a number of intervals, usually called *bins*. For each such bin a representative square integrable wavefunction is constructed, by an appropriate superposition of the continuum functions inside the bin. Thus, for a total angular momentum $`J`$ with projection $`M`$, the CDCC scattering wave function for the $`c+A`$ system is expanded as

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{JM}^{CDCC}(𝐫,𝐑)=[\varphi _0(𝐫)Y_L(\widehat{R})]_{JM}\chi _{0,L}^J(R)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}_{max}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{L=|J\mathrm{}|}{\overset{J+\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\chi _{i,L}^J(R)\left[\varphi _{i,\mathrm{}}(𝐫)Y_L(\widehat{R})\right]_{JM},`$ (2)
with $`N=k_{max}/\mathrm{\Delta }k`$. Here $`\varphi _{i,\mathrm{}}(𝐫)`$ are the bin wavefunctions; $`\chi _{i,\mathrm{}L}^J(R)`$ and $`\chi _{0,L}^J(R)`$ are the radial wavefunctions for the relative motion between $`c`$ and $`A`$.

The radial functions $`\chi _{0,L}^J`$ and $`\chi _{i,L}^J`$ are determined by solving a set of coupled equations in the truncated space. The coupling potentials between different channels are given by:

$$V_{i\mathrm{}:i^{}\mathrm{}^{}}(𝐑)=\varphi _i\mathrm{}(𝐫)|V_\alpha (𝐫,𝐑)|\varphi _i^{}\mathrm{}^{}(𝐫),$$
(3)
where it is understood that $`i`$=0 stands for the ground state. These coupling potentials include the g.s-g.s matrix element (also known as the Watanabe potential), g.s.-continuum terms and continuum-continuum couplings. The latter can be handled in the same way as the others because the continuum bins have been made square integrable. The wavefunction (II) permits the description of the elastic and breakup processes for the reaction $`A+c`$.

Let us now consider the transfer reaction $`a(𝒞,A)c(a=c+v,A=𝒞+v)`$, where we have chosen the notation such that the exit channel of the transfer corresponds to the elastic channel presented above. The prior form of the transition amplitude for the transfer reaction process is Satchler (1983):

$$T_{\text{prior}}=\mathrm{\Psi }_f^{()}|V_{vc}+U_{c𝒞}U_\alpha |\chi _\alpha ^{(+)}\varphi _a\varphi _𝒞,$$
(4)
where $`V_{vc}`$ is the the potential which binds the $`v`$ valence particle to the $`c`$ core, $`U_{c𝒞}`$ is the core-core potential, and $`U_\alpha `$ is an arbitrary potential that generates the distorted wave function in the entrance channel $`\chi _\alpha ^{()}`$. Note that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_f^{()}`$ is the total exact wave function with outgoing boundary conditions. In Eq. (4), $`V_{vc}`$ is a real potential, while $`U_\alpha `$ can be chosen either as real or complex. It is usually chosen as the optical potential $`U_\alpha =U_{a𝒞}`$ which reproduces the elastic scattering in the entrance channel.

In practice, Eq. (4) is not directly used, as it requires the knowledge of the exact solution of the 3-body Schrödinger scattering equation for the entrance partition, a rather complicated problem on its own. Approximations of this general form are developed according to the desired applications.

When the coupling between the partitions $`a+𝒞`$ and $`A+c`$ is sufficiently weak, the transfer process can be treated in Born approximation. Even in this situation, if the coupling to some excited states of any of the partitions is strong, the transfer process can proceed via these intermediate states. In these circumstances, it is convenient to solve the coupled equations that include the couplings between the different excited states, followed by the calculation of the transfer in Born approximation. This procedure is known as the CCBA method (Coupled Channels Born Approximation). When the coupling between the excited states of the same partition are weak, a further approximation is commonly performed, by neglecting the explicit coupling to these states. This procedure is known as Distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA). Even when the couplings are not so weak, they may be at least partially taken into account by an appropriate choice of the optical potentials.

When weakly bound nuclei are involved, the CCBA is expected to be a reasonable approach, because the transfer cross section is small due to the unfavorable $`Q`$–matching. However, couplings to continuum states may still be important, as these can act as intermediate steps in the rearrangement process. It is not obvious that the DWBA approach properly accounts for these continuum effects. Nevertheless, this procedure has been used recently in the analysis of reactions involving weakly bound systems as a tool to extract the ANC information. Therefore, it is timely to perform a detailed analysis of the scattering frameworks used to described the transfer processes. In particular, it is relevant to investigate to what extent the effects of the coupling to the continuum can be incorporated effectively in the optical potentials used by the DWBA approach.

In the case of elastic and inelastic scattering, a common procedure is to represent the continuum spectrum in $`\mathrm{\Psi }_f^{()}`$ by a finite set of normalizable states, such as the CDCC expansion of Eq. (II). When rearrangement channels are to be considered, as in Eq. (4), because the transfer step itself is not strong we can plausibly approximate the exact wavefunction appearing in Eq. (4) by the CDCC wavefunction of Eq. (II). This procedure is called the CDCC-BA method. In CDCC-BA the exact transition amplitude is approximated by:

$$T_{\text{prior}}^{CDCCBA}=\mathrm{\Psi }_f^{\mathrm{CDCC}()}|V_{vc}+U_{c𝒞}U_{a𝒞}|\chi _\alpha ^{(+)}\varphi _a\varphi _𝒞.$$
(5)
All couplings included in the CDCC-BA applied to the (7Be,8B) case are schematically illustrated in Fig. 1.

Our choice of the prior representation for the transfer matrix element is not arbitrary. In post form, the binding interaction is that of the exiting projectile $`V_{v𝒞}`$ and the remnant term is the difference between the core-core interaction $`U_{c𝒞}`$, and the optical potential for the exit channel $`U_{a𝒞}`$. However, this exit channel optical potential is often unknown: contrary to the entrance channel elastic data, elastic scattering in the exit channel cannot be measured in the same experiment, and in many cases it is just unmeasurable as both projectile and target are radioactive. It can then be found either by fitting the scattering from the CDCC model, or by extrapolating from neighboring nuclei. The prior form of the CDCC-BA approach, by contrast, does not require any knowledge of the optical potential $`U_\beta `$ for this exit channel. It seems more appropriate, therefore, to use the prior form representation of the transition operator and, consequently, all the calculations presented hereafter were performed in this representation.

The further approximation of the CDCC by just its elastic channel, found with some optical potential $`U_\beta `$, gives the DWBA transition amplitude in prior form:

$$T_{\text{prior}}^{DWBA}=\chi _\beta ^{()}\varphi _^_A\varphi _c|V_{vc}+U_{c𝒞}U_{a𝒞}|\chi _\alpha ^{(+)}\varphi _a\varphi _𝒞.$$
(6)
This simple approximation, very commonly used in ANC analyses, still requires knowledge of the optical potential for the exit channel $`U_{a𝒞}`$, and hence suffers from the difficulties enumerated above. However, if the transfer cross sections are not very sensitive to this potential, then the DWBA will still be a useful procedure. We examine this sensitivity below, by studying the degree of agreement between the DWBA and the CDCC. In both approaches, the remnant term of the transition matrix element for systems where a nucleon is transferred from a well bound state to a loosely bound state (or vice-versa) is often not negligible and should be accounted for properly.

## III The elastic scattering 8B + 13C

We investigate in this section the elastic scattering 8B \+ 13C at E$`_{_{\mathrm{lab}}}`$=78.4 MeV, which is the exit channel in the transfer reaction we wish to analyze in the present work. In particular, we study the importance of the continuum in the calculated differential cross section. This reaction was previously analyzed in the work of Trache et al. (2000) using a renormalized double folding (RDF) potential obtained by an analysis of nearby stable nuclei. A parameterization of this RDF potential in terms of usual Woods-Saxon forms was also derived by fitting the outer part of the RDF potential. Since these fitted potentials may differ in the inner part from the original RDF potentials, we used the latter in our calculations, as in the results presented in Trache et al. (2000). As this interaction is derived from a systematic study on stable nuclei, it is not clear how adequate are these extrapolations to loosely bound nuclei. Elastic data for 8B + 13C would help to shed light on these issues.

In this section we analyze the same reaction in terms of the CDCC formalism, for two reasons. First, this treatment allows an explicit study of the role of the continuum and, second, it provides an alternative analysis to the RDF which does not require the optical potential for 8B + 13C, thus providing a valuable reference in the absence of experimental data.

An important ingredient of the CDCC calculation is the bound state wavefunction of the 8B nucleus. For the binding potential, we have adopted the parameters given in Esbensen and Bertsch (1996) and listed in Table 1. The valence proton wavefunction is considered to be a pure $`p_{3/2}`$ configuration coupled to a zero spin core of 7Be with unit spectroscopic factor. Although it is known that there is a $`p_{1/2}`$ which has a small contribution to the cross section Azhari et al. (1999a), we chose to neglect it to make the CDCC calculations feasible.

The interaction between the projectile $`{}_{}{}^{8}\mathrm{B}`$, and the target 13C to be used in the CDCC calculation is written as the sum of the interactions $`U`$(7Be,13C) and $`U`$($`p`$,13C). No experimental data for the elastic scattering 7Be + 13C at the relevant energies ($``$68 MeV) have been found in the literature. Nevertheless, the similarity in the structure of 7Be and its mirror partner 7Li suggests to describe this reaction using the potential taken from the reaction 7Li+13C, for which experimental data exists at 63 MeV. The $`U`$($`p`$,13C) was taken from nucleon-nucleus global parameterizations.

Convergence of the CDCC results was achieved with matching radius of 40 fm and maximum total angular momentum of $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$=100. The continuum spectrum was divided into $`N=10`$ bins of equal energy width in the range from 0 to 9 MeV. We took into account $`s`$, $`p`$ and $`d`$ continuum partial waves. All the calculations were performed with the computer code FRESCO Thompson (1988).

We checked the sensitivity of the calculation with respect to the $`U`$(7Be,13C) and $`U`$($`p`$,13C) interactions. To analyze the uncertainty associated with the interaction $`U`$($`p`$,13C), we compare in Fig. 2(a) the calculated differential cross section for the $`p`$+13C elastic scattering (as ratio to Rutherford), using several proton-13C interactions, adopted from the global parameterizations of Watson Watson et al. (1969), represented by the solid curve, Becchetti-Greenless Becchetti and Greenlees (1969) (dashed line) and Perey Perey and Perey (1963) (dashed dotted line). In all three cases the spin-orbit term was omitted.

The calculated CDCC elastic angular distributions shown in Fig. 2(b) with the Watson and Perey parameterizations are very similar, but significantly different from that calculated with the Becchetti-Greenless potential. As is well known, the Becchetti-Greenless parameterization is better suited for medium and heavy mass nuclei, and for higher scattering energies. Thus, the use of this optical potential to describe the scattering of $`p+^{13}`$C around 10 MeV may be questionable. This, together with the fact that the Watson and Perey parameterizations provide essentially the same elastic scattering, suggests that we can use either of these with some confidence. From hereafter, the Watson potential of Watson et al. (1969) will be used in all the CDCC calculations.

We study now the sensitivity of the calculated differential cross sections with respect to the $`U`$(7Be,13C) potential. Fig. 3(a) shows the calculated elastic scattering cross section for 7Be+13C using the potentials Pot1 (solid curve), Pot2 (dashed-dotted curve) from the reaction 7Li+13C at 63 MeV analysed in Trache et al. (2000) and listed in Table 1. Also included in Fig. 3(a) is the result obtained with the optical potential $`U`$(7Be,14N) (dashed line). In Fig. 3(b) we show the corresponding CDCC calculations for the 8B + 13C elastic scattering at 78.4 MeV. It is observed that the CDCC calculations for 8B$`+^{13}`$C, using potentials Pot1 and Pot2, give very similar results, whereas when the core-target potential is taken to be $`U`$(7Be,14N), a somewhat bigger difference is encountered beyond 30 degrees. In the following, we will use Pot1 as the core-target interaction.

Finally, we compare in Fig. 4 the CDCC (thick solid line) and pure OM calculations. The thin solid line is the OM calculation, using the RDF potential derived in Trache et al. (2000). This agrees very well with the CDCC at small angles (up to 25 degrees), but presents significant discrepancies beyond this range. Also included in this figure is an OM calculation using the same double folding potential, but fitting the real and imaginary renormalization constants to approximate the CDCC result. We found that a value of $`N_r=0.427`$ and $`N_i=0.883`$ (dotted-dashed line) provides an excellent agreement between both calculations, in contrast to the value $`N_r0.366`$ (thin solid line) proposed in Trache et al. (2000). Any experimental results for this reaction at $`\theta >30`$ degrees would help clarify the adequacy of global parameterizations for loosely bound nuclei.

We have also estimated the effect of the 8B continuum on the calculated elastic scattering cross section. To this end we compare in Fig. 5 the elastic differential cross section using the full CDCC calculation (thick solid line) with a calculation in which all couplings with continuum states have been ignored (dotted line). The latter is equivalent to a optical model calculation in which the projectile–target interaction is described in terms of the Watanabe folding potential. Also represented is the CDCC without continuum–continuum couplings (dashed line). It can be seen that this truncated calculation provides cross sections which are already very close to those produced by the full CDCC calculation, suggesting that multistep processes coupling different continuum states are not very relevant in this reaction. The main CDCC effect appears to be a reduction of the cross sections caused by absorption due to breakup at near-grazing collisions.

## IV The transfer reaction 14N(7Be,8B)13C

We analyze in this section the transfer reaction 14N(7Be,8B)13C at 84 MeV, within the DWBA and CDCC-BA approaches. In order to make a reliable comparison between both formalisms we have calculated the transition amplitudes in Eq. (6) and Eq. (5) using the same core-core interaction, $`U_{c𝒞}`$: we take Pot1 from Table 1. For the binding potential ($`V_{vc}`$) of $`p`$ \+ 13C we used the parameters listed in Table 1. The entrance channel was described in terms of the numerical RDF potential derived in Trache et al. (2000). The DWBA calculation requires also the exit optical potential $`U_\beta `$= $`U`$(8B,13C), which we also took from Trache et al. (2000) in numerical form.

The ground state and continuum structure of 8B needed for the CDCC calculation was taken to be the same as the one in the previous section. The 14N ground state was described as a proton in a $`p_{1/2}`$ configuration, with spectroscopic factor 0.604 Azhari et al. (1999a). For the purpose of comparing the present calculations with the data we have renormalized $`all`$ the calculated transfer cross sections by the spectroscopic factor $`S_{p_{3/2}}`$=0.737. This value was derived from the ANC reported in Azhari et al. (1999a) for the $`p_{3/2}`$ configuration in the 8B ground state ($`C_{p_{3/2}}^2`$=0.371 fm-1) and the calculated asymptotic normalization constant for the single-particle orbital. All 8B continuum couplings are taken into account, but no transfer back-couplings are included, as this would worsen the fit to the elastic scattering in the entrance channel.

Note also that our simplified description of 8B in terms of a proton coupled to a zero spin core provides a cross section which, after multiplication of the factor ($`2I_A+1)(2I_c+1)/(2I_a+1)(2I_𝒞+1)`$, is equivalent 111In the absence of spin dependent forces, the transfer cross section for 14N+7Be($`0^+`$)$`^{13}`$C+8B($`3/2^{}`$) should equal the sum of the cross sections $`_I^{14}`$N+7Be(3/2-) $`^{13}`$C + 8B($`I`$), for $`I=0^+,1^+,2^+,3^+`$ that result from the coupling of $`I(^7\mathrm{Be})`$ to the $`p_{3/2}`$ proton single particle state. The physical process measured is only 14N+7Be($`3/2^{}`$)$`^{13}`$C+8B($`2^+`$). According to detailed balance, one can conclude that the weight of this reaction relative to the total sum is ($`2I_A+1)(2I_c+1)/(2I_a+1)(2I_𝒞+1)`$=5/16. This means that the calculated transfer cross section using a simplified description with zero spin for 7Be needs to be multiplied by this factor.  to the cross section calculated with correct spins.

The resulting transfer cross sections are presented in Fig. 6. The thick solid line corresponds to the full CDCC-BA calculation. The thin solid line represents the DWBA calculation with a renormalized double folding (RDF) potential for the entrance and exit channels, using $`N_r`$=0.366 for the two potentials. The resulting angular distribution is very close to the CDCC calculation, differing by only 5% at the maximum of the distribution, which is unmeasurable within the present experimental accuracy.

We stress however, that, as shown in the previous section, OM and CDCC give different predictions for the elastic scattering in the exit channel at large angles. Under the circumstances, we believe that the CDCC predictions for the elastic 8B$`+^{13}`$C is more reliable (see discussion in section III). Notwithstanding, we have shown that these coupling effects can be easily included in the optical potential by adjusting the renormalization constants. We have then performed a DWBA calculation using the RDF with a complex renormalization constant $`N_r=0.427,N_i=0.883`$, accurately reproducing the CDCC elastic predictions (dot–dashed line in Fig. 6). Despite the fact that this change in the renormalization constants modifies significantly the elastic cross sections of the exit channel beyond 30 degrees, the resulting transfer cross section remains basically unaltered up to 25 degrees, the angular range used in Azhari et al. (1999a) to extract the ANC information. This result seems to support the peripheral nature of this reaction. Also shown in the figure is the calculated transfer cross section without continuum couplings (dotted line). This appears to be very similar to the full CDCC calculation. The similarity between all curves demonstrates the minor role played by the continuum of 8B and confirms the DWBA formalism as an adequate tool to extract the ANC in this reaction, as done in Azhari et al. (1999a).

In order to check the dependence of this result with the bombarding energy, we compared the CDCC and DWBA at other energies. We found that the effect of the continuum decreases as the incident energy increases. For instance, at 160 MeV the transfer cross sections calculated in CDCC-BA and DWBA differ by less than 1% at angles up to 30 degrees. By contrast, at 40 MeV differences of around 8% where found at the maximum of the angular distribution.

## V Conclusions

In summary, we have studied the reaction 14N(7Be,8B)13C at 84 MeV, placing special stress on the importance of the continuum of 8B in the description of the exit channel and in the transfer process. This reaction has been recently measured and analyzed within the DWBA formalism Azhari et al. (1999a), in order to extract the astrophysical $`S_{17}`$ factor for the capture reaction $`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Be}+p^8\mathrm{B}`$. The validity of this procedure relies on the assumption that the transfer reaction occurs in one step and, also, that the entrance and exit channels are well described by optical potentials.

The importance of the 8B continuum in the reaction mechanism has been analyzed by describing the 8B+13C scattering in terms of $`p+^{13}`$C and 7Be+13C optical potentials and discretizing the 8B continuum into energy bins. The elastic cross sections given by the CDCC solution has been compared with those obtained in the optical model analysis performed in Trache et al. (2000). In this reference, the elastic scattering of 8B+13C was analyzed in terms of a double folding optical potential, using a renormalization constant derived from a systematic analysis of several reactions involving stable nuclei in the same energy and mass region. We found that the calculated differential elastic cross section is very similar in both approaches at forward angles, but they differ significantly at larger angles. This result cast doubt on the extrapolation of the global optical potentials derived from stable nuclei to loosely bound nuclei. Interestingly, in this reaction the CDCC effects can be accounted for very well by correcting the normalization of the double folding potential. The calculated CDCC wave function is then used in the expression for the transfer amplitude. Despite the discrepancies on the elastic scattering of the exit channel at large angles, the calculated transfer cross sections are very similar in the DWBA and CDCC-BA approaches below 25 degrees, which was the angular range used to extract the ANC for this reaction. Taking into account the result of Nunes and Mukhamedzhanov (2001), where coupling to excited (bound) states was also found to be negligible, to the accuracy of the present transfer data, the present analysis supports the validity of the DWBA method as a reliable tool to extract the $`S`$–factor from the 14N(7Be,8B)13C reaction at the studied energy. Consequently, these higher order corrections to the DWBA cannot justify the disagreement between the $`S_{17}`$ extracting using the ANC method and the new direct results from Seattle Junghans et al. (2002).

Similar checks for other reactions that involve loosely bound nuclei are underway. As the structure of 8B was simplified, some interference effects could not be probed in this work. Even if less important when continuum coupling effects are small, these effects should generally be properly included. This problem is also being addressed.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are deeply grateful to J. Gómez-Camacho for his fruitful comments, and to L. Trache for providing the data, the numerical optical potentials and other details concerning the analysis of the data presented. Support from Fundaçao para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (F.C.T.) under the grant SAPIENS/36282/99 and EPSRC under grant GR/M/82141 are acknowledged. One of the authors (A.M.M.) acknowledges a F.C.T. post-doctoral grant.


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# Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Lynds 870 Based on observations with the 10-m Heinrich-Hertz-Telescope (HHT) and the MPIfR 100-m telescope at Effelsberg. The HHT is operated by the Submillimeter Telescope Observatory on behalf of Steward Observatory and the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie. The 100-m telescope is operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie.

## 1 Introduction

Stars form from collapsing dense cores of molecular clouds. Protostars arise as a result of the collapse and evolve (if their mass does not exceed a few solar masses) from Class 0 to Class I, II and III objects (André et al. Andre00 (2000)). The earliest stages of star formation are observationally characterized by an association with dense molecular cores, masers and molecular outflows. The dust and the gas of dense cores can be traced by submillimeter continuum and spectral line emission from tracers like $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$, CS, and $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$. Molecular outflows, usually traced in lines of the CO molecule with broad-line wing emission, have received considerable attention over the past two decades and over 250 outflow sources have been cataloged so far (Fukui et al. Fukui93 (1993); Wu et al. Wu96 (1996)). Our current understanding of outflow properties and its interaction with the parental dense core is, however, heavily influenced by a few well-studied examples, and may be far from accurate.

Recently an IRAS-selected CO $`J`$ = 1–0 survey has been carried out at the 13.7m mm-wave telescope of the Purple Mountain Observatory at Delingha (Yang et al. Yang99 (1999), Yang02 (2002); Jiang et al. Jiang00 (2000)). A number of sources with strong CO emission and/or outflowing gas have been selected from the survey. In this work, we present detailed observations of one of the sources, IRAS 20231+3440 (hereafter I 20231).

I 20231 ($`\alpha _{2000.0}`$=20h25m07s.0, $`\delta _{2000.0}`$=345005′′) is located within Lynds 870. On Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) prints, there is no optical counterpart at the position of I 20231. High extinction can be traced over a region of 15$`\times `$15. The infrared colour indices of I 20231 show that the source is deeply embedded (Emerson Emerson88 (1988)). At the same time the IRAS colors satisfy the criteria introduced by Wood & Churchwell (Wood89 (1989)) for compact HII regions. There were some water maser detections reported (Palla et al. Palla93 (1993); Brand et al. Brand94 (1994)), which indicate an early stage of young stellar object (YSO) formation, but methanol (van der Walt et al. Walt96 (1996)) and OH masers were not detected (Slysh et al. Slysh97 (1997)). CS 2–1 observations give $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$$``$5.4 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$(Bronfman et al. Bronfman96 (1996)), which indicates a dynamical distance of 3.7 kpc (far) or 1.0 kpc (near distance). The optical extinction seen on POSS prints suggests that the nearer distance is more reasonable and we will take 1.0 kpc as the distance to the source. Since all mapping observations were carried out w.r.t I 20231, we refer in the following to this as the reference position (offset (0′′, 0′′)).

In this paper, we present molecular line and 870 $`\mu `$m continuum observations to trace the dense molecular gas, the outflows and the submillimeter dust continuum around I 20231. In § 2, we describe our observations, and in § 3 and § 4 we derive physical parameters from our dust continuum and molecular line data. In § 5, results from NIR photometry are studied and in § 6, we discuss the global properties of star formation in the region. Conclusions are drawn in § 7.

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ and $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ at Effelsberg 100-m

The $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ and the 22 GHz $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ maser observations were obtained in July 1999, April and July 2000, using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope of the Max-Plank Institute für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) equipped with a maser receiver in 1999 and a dual channel K-band HEMT receiver in 2000. The typical system temperature was about 150 K – 200 K on a main beam brightness temperature scale; the half-power beam width was $``$40′′. The data were recorded with a 8192-channel autocorrelator. The K-band HEMT receiver allowed us to measure the ($`J,K`$) = (1,1) to (4,4) $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ inversion lines simultaneously. The observed spectral resolution was 0.24 and 0.98 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ observations in 1999 and 2000, respectively, and about 0.13 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ maser observations. The line intensities were calibrated relative to the continuum of NGC 7027, for which we assume a flux density of 5.86 Jy, corresponding to a main beam brightness temperature of 8.1 K. Pointing was checked every hour on nearby continuum sources and was found to be stable within 10′′. The calibration accuracy is estimated to be $`\pm `$20%.

### 2.2 mm and sub-mm line observations at HHT 10m

Molecular line emission of CO, CS, $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ and some of their rare isotopes was observed with the 10-m Heinrich Hertz Telescope (HHT; see Baars et al. Baars99 (1999)) on Mt. Graham in Southern Arizona during three sessions in April 1999, January 2000 and May 2000. The receivers were sensitive to both sidebands. A dual channel 345 GHz SIS receiver was used for the $`J`$ = 3–2 transitions of $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ and its isotopes, while all the mm-wave lines were observed with a single channel 230 GHz SIS receiver. For the 12CO mapping we used the spectral line On–The–Fly (OTF) method, in which we scanned the telescope at a rate of about 1′′ per second. The off position was located at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =1^{}`$ west of I 20231 and was free of CO emission. The most central region ($``$1–2) around I 20231 was also mapped in $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$, $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$, $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$, $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$, $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$and CS with standard position switching (off position at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$ = 20). The $`J`$ = 5–4 lines of three rare CS isotopes, 12C34S, 12C33S and 13C32S, were obtained towards the central position of I 20231.

For the $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ observations we used two 2048-channel 1 GHz Acousto-Optical Spectrometers (AOS) as backends, with a mean channel spacing of 917 KHz corresponding to $``$0.78 and 1.19 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at 345 and 230 GHz, respectively. A 256-channel filter bank with a channel spacing of 250 kHz, providing higher spectral resolution, was used simultaneously for other molecular lines. The beam widths were about 22 and 33′′ for 345 and 230 GHz respectively.

All results displayed are given on a main beam brightness temperature scale ($`T_{\mathrm{MB}}`$), which is related to $`T_\mathrm{A}^{}`$ via $`T_{\mathrm{MB}}`$ = $`T_\mathrm{A}^{}`$ ($`F_{\mathrm{eff}}`$/$`B_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) (see Downes Downes89 (1989)). Main beam efficiencies, $`B_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, were 0.5 and 0.78 at 345 and 230 GHz, as obtained from measurements of Saturn. Forward hemisphere efficiencies, $`F_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, were 0.9 and 0.95, respectively. For $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$, $χ$ Cyg was used for both pointing and absolute line intensity calibration. The rms pointing uncertainty was found to be $``$5′′. Line intensities were found to be accurate within 20% when compared to the $`J`$ = 3–2 line of CO of Stanek et al. (Stanek95 (1995)) and the $`J`$ = 2–1 line of Loup et al. (Loup93 (1993)). For other lines, Orion-KL was observed as a secondary calibrator and the line survey results by Sutton et al. (Sutton85 (1985)) and Blake et al. (Blake86 (1986)) near 230 GHz and Schilke et al. (Schilke97 (1997)) near 345 GHz were used for comparison. Again calibration errors should not exceed 20%.

### 2.3 870 $`\mu `$m continuum observations

870 $`\mu `$m dust continuum emission was imaged with the HHT 19 channel bolometer array. The array covers a hexagonal 200′′ field of view. The beam width of the HHT is about 22′′ at 870 $`\mu `$m. Maps were taken using the OTF method with a beam throw of 120′′ and a scanning speed of 8′′ per second. Five OTF maps, with three coverages (400$`{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\times `$300′′ in size) centered at I 20231 and another two coverages (320$`{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\times `$260′′) centered at (0′′,–180′′) relative to I 20231 were finally combined by mosaicing. The average r.m.s noise level is about 90 mJy in the combined map. All maps were calibrated using 870 $`\mu `$m skydips and the standard calibrators Uranus and G 34.3+0.2, and a peak flux density of 60 Jy beam-1 was assumed for the latter one. At 870 $`\mu `$m, the typical atmospheric opacity was about 0.4 during the observations. The calibration accuracy should be better than $`\pm `$20%.

## 3 Dust Continuum Emission

A 870 $`\mu `$m continuum image of L 870 is presented in Fig. 1. The map reveals two submillimeter cores (SMM), the northern one, SMM1, peaked at (7′′,–7′′) with a peak flux density of 1.67 Jy beam-1, directly associated with I 20231 and the southern one, SMM2, peaked at (12′′,–188′′) with a peak flux density of 0.60 Jy beam-1, not associated with any IRAS point source. The northern core region is elongated along a position angle of $`P.A.`$ –20 with a deconvolved half-power size of 17′′ by 50′′ (0.08 pc by 0.25 pc), while the southern core region looks more irregular. Also shown in the map is a filament southwest of I 20231. This is however only a $``$3$`\sigma `$ detection, and deeper images are needed to confirm its existence. The integrated flux densities of the northern, the southern and the filament regions are 6.5$`\pm `$1.1, 1.7$`\pm `$0.5 and 0.7$`\pm `$0.2 Jy, respectively.

The masses of the clouds can be estimated via M=FνD2/$`\kappa _\nu `$Bν(Td), where $`F_\nu `$ is the flux density, $`D`$ denotes the distance towards the cloud, $`B_\nu (T_\mathrm{d})`$ is the Plank function for temperature $`T_\mathrm{d}`$, and $`\kappa _\nu `$ is the dust opacity per unit gas and dust mass. Various values of $`\kappa _\nu `$ for different regions can be found in the literature (e.g. Draine & Lee Draine84 (1984); Hildebrand Hildebrand83 (1983); Preibisch et al. Preibisch93 (1993); Ossenkopf & Henning Ossenkopf94 (1994); Krügel & Siebenmorgen Krugel94 (1994)). We adopt here the value $`\kappa _{870\mu \mathrm{m}}`$ = 0.01 cm2g-1, using the Hildebrand (Hildebrand83 (1983)) assumptions, with $`\beta `$=2 ($`\beta `$: exponent in the frequency dependence of the dust grain emissivity). For the southern dust core, we apply a dust temperature of 12 K, a typical value for star forming cores (Williams et al. Williams99 (1999); Bacmann et al. Bacmann00 (2000)). For the northern core, we take a higher dust temperature of 30 K, as indicated by the color temperature of $``$ 33 K derived from 60 and 100$`\mu `$m dust emission (Henning et al. Henning90 (1990)). Total masses traced by the dust are then 33.9$`\pm `$6.3, 40.0$`\pm `$11.8 and 16.5$`\pm `$4.7 M for the northern core, the southern core and the filament, respectively. Note that the masses derived in this way can be linearly scaled to another value of $`\kappa _{870\mu \mathrm{m}}`$ if desired; moreover masses are sensitive to the temperature and a higher temperature would decrease the calculated mass inversely proportional.

The beam averaged (22′′) peak column density, derived from the peak flux density of 1.67 Jy beam-1, is 9.6$`\times `$1022$`\text{cm}^2`$, which gives a corresponding peak extinction of $`A_\mathrm{v}`$$``$ 100 ($`N(\mathrm{H}_2)=A_\mathrm{v}\times 9.5\times 10^{20}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$, Bohlin et al. Bohlin78 (1978)). The beam averaged peak column density for a different beam size can be calculated by smoothing the image to the corresponding beam size, assuming a Gaussian shape of the beam. Column densities of 7.5, 7.0, 6.3 and 5.5$`\times 10^{22}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$ are derived for beam sizes of 29, 32, 35 and 40′′, respectively. To estimate molecular abundances assuming they trace the same volume as the 870 $`\mu `$m dust continuum emission, these values will be used in the following.

## 4 Molecular Line Emission

Results derived from our molecular line observations are summarized in Table 1, which lists: molecular line, rest frequency, half power beam width (HPBW) at the corresponding frequency, main beam brightness temperature, Local Standard of Rest (LSR) velocity, full width to half power (FWHP) line width, integrated line intensity, estimated optical depth averaged over the line profile, and offset position relative to I 20231. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`v_{\mathrm{int}}`$ values presented in column 6 are intrinsic line widths that were deconvolved by the spectral resolution. The $`\overline{\tau }`$ value given in column 8 is estimated from the ratio of integrated intensities of the same transition in two different isotopes, assuming isotope ratios of \[13C\]:\[12C\]=1:69.7, \[18O\]:\[17O\]:\[16O\]=5.5:1:2856 (Wilson & Rood Wilson94 (1994)), and \[34S\]:\[32S\]=31.3 (Chin et al. Chin96 (1996)) for a galactocentric distance of 8.2 kpc. In the case of $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$, the peak optical depth of the main group of hyperfine components is given. We assume local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) at an excitation temperature $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and identical beam filling factors (unity) throughout the following analysis. For the line emission from linear, rigid rotor molecules such as CO, CS, $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ and their isotopes, the beam averaged column density in $`\text{cm}^2`$ is given by

$`\overline{N}=`$ $`10^5\times {\displaystyle \frac{3k^2}{4h\pi ^3\mu ^2\nu ^2}}exp\left({\displaystyle \frac{h\nu J}{2kT_{\mathrm{ex}}}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{T_{\mathrm{ex}}+h\nu /6k(J+1)}{e^{h\nu /kT_{\mathrm{ex}}}}}`$ (1)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\tau }}{1e^{\overline{\tau }}}}{\displaystyle T_{\mathrm{MB}}𝑑v}`$
(Scoville et al. Scoville86 (1986)), where $`T_{\mathrm{MB}}𝑑v`$ is the integrated intensity in $`\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$of the $`J`$+1$``$$`J`$ transitions with frequency $`\nu `$ (Hz) and optical depth $`\overline{\tau }`$. $`k`$ (erg k-1)and $`h`$ (erg s) denote the Boltzmann constant and the Planck constant, respectively, and $`\mu `$ (esu cm) is the permanent dipole moment. For $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ column densities, see § 4.1.

### 4.1 $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ data

Fig.2 illustrates the distribution of integrated intensity of the $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ (1,1) main group of lines. The whole region can be divided into three subregions, with two cores located close to the two 870$`\mu `$m peaks and a ridge in between. Such a morphology generally resembles the twin core system defined by Jijina et al. (Jijina99 (1999)) in their extensive study of nearby $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ dense cores. The northern core has an associated IRAS source (I 20231), while the southern one does not. The spatial structure of the ammonia cores more or less follows the 870 $`\mu `$m dust morphology. With a deconvolved half-power size of 35′′ by 57′′ (0.17 pc by 0.28 pc), the northern core is more centrally peaked than the southern one, which has a deconvolved size of about 75′′ (0.36 pc). To the northwest of the ridge emission, there is a spur structure, which matches the weak 870 $`\mu `$m filament, suggesting that the continuum feature is real.

While (1,1) and (2,2) line emission of ammonia is fairly extended in the region, (3,3) emission is more concentrated around I 20231 and (4,4) emission is only detected towards I 20231 itself with high signal to noise ratio (S/N). Observed parameters of the (1,1) to (4,4) lines are listed in Table 1 (see attached spectra in Fig. 2).

All positions detected in (1,1) and (2,2) emission were analysed with the usual technique (see Harju et al. Harju93 (1993)). The rotation temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{rot}}`$, the column densities $`N`$($`\mathrm{NH}_3`$), and the number densities $`n(\mathrm{H}_2`$) at the two peak positions (0′′,0′′) and (0′′,–180′′) are calculated to be 15.8 and 12.9 K, 1.45$`\times `$1015 and 7.8$`\times 10^{14}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$, 1.9$`\times `$104 and 3.5$`\times `$103$`\text{cm}^3`$, respectively. However, $`T_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ derived from (1,1) and (2,2) emission usually tends to underestimate the gas kinetic temperature $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$, which can be better approached by a $`T_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ estimated from transitions with higher excitation (Walmsley & Ungerechts Walmsley83 (1983); Danby et al. Danby88 (1988)). We thus alternatively apply a rotation diagram for a better determination of $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ for the (0′′,0′′) position where a good S/N ratio (4,4) spectrum was taken. Assuming a single $`T_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ for the populations in all metastable levels, a best fit gives a $`T_{\mathrm{rot}}`$=31.8$`\pm `$6.2 K from the (1,1), (2,2) and (4,4) transitions of para-$`\mathrm{NH}_3`$. We can thus safely conclude a $`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$$``$25 K for the dense gas within a region 40′′ in diameter around I 20231.

From the beam averaged $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ column density for a 40′′ area towards I 20231 (see § 3), we can estimate the $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ fractional abundance $`\chi `$($`\mathrm{NH}_3`$) = \[$`\mathrm{NH}_3`$\]/\[H2\] $``$ 2.6$`\times `$10-8. The masses are then 43, 53 and 12 M for the northern core, southern core and the ridge including the spur, respectively. These masses agree well with those derived from submillimeter dust emission. The total mass of the whole region is therefore $``$110 M. The virial masses derived from the line width and core size are 113 and 52 M for the northern and southern core, respectively. While the southern core gives a virial mass very close to the masses derived from dust and $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ emission, the northern core shows a significant inconsistency. This may be due to line broadening by outflowing gas which will be discussed below.

### 4.2 CO data

#### 4.2.1 Ambient CO emission

Spectra of selected CO isotopes taken at the position of I 20231 are shown in Fig. 3. The $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ $`J`$ = 3–2 and 2–1 spectra show similar line shapes, with broad-line wings over more than 40 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and a deep dip at $``$6 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Since the off position was carefully chosen to be free of emission and because of the lineshapes of the $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$, $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ and $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ profiles (see below), we believe that the dip feature is caused by self-absorption. The self-absorption between 3 and 8 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with a $`T_{\mathrm{MB}}`$ of about 3 K and 2 K in $`J`$ = 2–1 and 3–2, respectively, requires a consistent excitation temperature of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$$``$7.5 K, which is likely the temperature of the outermost layer of the cloud. The $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$, $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ and $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ lines are peaked at the velocity of the $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ dip (marked as a dashed vertical line in Fig. 3), with a $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ of 6.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, very close to that of our $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ lines. From the ratio of peak temperatures of the $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ and $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ lines, assuming a \[$`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$\]/\[$`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$\] abundance ratio of 7.5 (Wilson & Rood Wilson94 (1994)), we find an LTE excitation temperature of 10 K for the $`J`$ = 2–1 and 11.5 K for the $`J`$ = 3–2 emission, and moderate optical depths of 0.96 and 0.8 at the peak velocity for the $`J`$ = 2–1 and 3–2 transitions of $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$, respectively. We adopt an excitation temperature of 10 K for the ambient molecular gas in the following calculations. Estimated from the ratio of integrated intensities of $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ and $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$, we find $`\overline{\tau }`$$``$0.5 for the $`J`$ = 3–2 and 2–1 line profiles of $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$. After applying a $`\tau `$–correction (multiply by a factor of $`\overline{\tau }/(1e^{\overline{\tau }}`$)), we estimate LTE $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ column densities of 1.4$`\times 10^{16}`$ and 7.3$`\times 10^{15}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$ for the inner 22′′ and 33′′ of the cloud. These lead to self-consistent fractional abundances of \[$`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$\]/\[$`\mathrm{H}_2`$\]$``$1.5$`\times `$10-7 and 1.2$`\times 10^7`$, which are in good agreement with the ‘typical’ value of 1.7$`\times 10^7`$ (Frerking et al. Frerking82 (1982)).

13CO and $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ were also mapped in the central part of the northern core (see panels a) and b) of Fig.4). $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ is believed to be optically thin and therefore can be used for mass estimation. The peak LTE column density of $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ is calculated to be 8.6$`\times 10^{14}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$, which gives a fractional $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ abundance of 1.4$`\times 10^8`$. Using the integrated emission over the mapped region, we estimate a quiescent molecular cloud mass associated with $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ emission to be $``$50 M, comparable to the mass derived from $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$. Note that this mass is only a lower limit due to the incompleteness of the map. The deconvolved size estimated from the $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$ emission is about 40′′ by 75′′ (0.2 pc by 0.36 pc), slightly larger than those estimated from the 870$`\mu `$m dust emission and the (1,1) line emission of $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$.

#### 4.2.2 The outflows

Broad-line wing emission has been detected in both CO $`J`$ = 2–1 and 3–2 transitions toward the central region in L 870. The $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ wing emission, determined from a comparison of $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ profiles, is defined by velocities redder than 9 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ or bluer than 3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Since CO $`J`$=2–1 and 3–2 maps of the outflowing material show very similar bipolar structures, we present in Fig. 5 only the higher angular resolution CO $`J`$=3–2 data. The blue- (–12 to 3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and the red-shifted (9 to 19 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) lobes are shown in solid and dashed contours, respectively. Note that the integral of the redshifted wing emission was intentionally truncated to avoid contamination from a separate velocity component at about 20 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which appears in three attached spectra at the right side of Fig. 5.

Being centered on I 20231, the outflow lobes are asymmetric and show some evidence of clumpiness, especially in the red lobe. There is some overlap between red and blue-shifted emission. Interestingly, close to the southern dust continuum peak, a pair of weak blue- and red-shifted lobe is also detected, indicative of ongoing star formation activity in this region too. Velocity channel maps (Fig.6) and a position velocity map along the declination axis (Fig.7) support this view. The blue-shifted lobe is, however, not fully covered by our map.

Fig. 6 presents a series of velocity maps in steps of 3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We have skipped the emission between 3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and 9 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ that is affected by self-absorption. As the maps show, the blue emission in the northern region forms a well-collimated lobe with I 20231 near one end and extends northeast, while the red emission shows two peaks, one at I 20231 and the other 40′′ to the west. There are two clumps emerging in the 18 to 21 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ channel map (right bottom panel in Fig. 6), with a more compact one located about 2 west of I 20231 and another one centered around the southern dust continuum peak SMM2. They are most likely cloudlets along the light-of-sight towards L 870, but the kinematic distances could not be estimated since their characteristic velocities fall into a forbidden zone. As shown in Fig.7, the strong self-absorption at ambient velocities in the northern core appears between two bright emission peaks at about 3 and 8.5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The mean optical depth in the line wings, calculated from $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ to $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ line ratios, is $``$3.0 for blue- (–12 to +3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and $``$2.0 for redshifted (9 to 19 kms) wing emission. From the ratio of CO $`J`$ = 3–2 and 2–1 brightness temperatures (the 3–2 spectra were smoothed to the angular resolution of the 2–1 profiles), we estimate the LTE excitation temperature $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ of the outflowing gas to be 20 K to 40 K for an extended source and 10 K to 14 K for a point source. We therefore take $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$=20 K for our outflow parameter calculations described below.

Assuming that the CO emission is near LTE and that the $`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$ fractional abundance is \[$`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$\]/\[$`\mathrm{H}_2`$\]$``$10-4, the outflow parameters were estimated following a method discussed by Cabrit & Bertout (Cabrit86 (1986), Cabrit90 (1990)). The mass of the outflowing gas is estimated from the integrated CO $`J`$ = 3–2 intensities of the red- and blueshifted lobes. The momentum $`P`$ and the energy $`E`$ are given by $`M_{\mathrm{flow}}<V>`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{flow}}<V>^2`$/2, respectively, where $`<V>`$ is the intensity-weighted velocity. We can also get the entrainment mass rate $`\dot{M}=M_{\mathrm{flow}}/t_\mathrm{d}`$, the force in the flow $`F=P/t_\mathrm{d}`$, and the mechanical luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{mech}}=E/t_\mathrm{d}`$, by taking the characteristic flow time scale, $`t_\mathrm{d}=R_{\mathrm{flow}}/<V>`$, where the flow radius, $`R_{\mathrm{flow}}`$ is the lobe extension. Correcting the flow parameters for an inclination angle (to the line of sight) of 45, we summarize the outflow parameters in Table 2. The corresponding parameters of the southern outflow are estimated assuming optically thin wing emission, since $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ data are not available in this case.

The parameters given in Table 2 are typical for low-mass or intermediate-mass YSOs. Cabrit & Bertout (Cabrit90 (1990)) estimated typical errors that should approximately be within a factor of $``$ 3 for $`M_{\mathrm{flow}}`$, a factor of $``$ 10 for $`F`$, and a factor of $``$ 30 for $`L_{\mathrm{mech}}`$. These errors may be introduced by the uncertainties in \[$`{}_{}{}^{12}\mathrm{CO}`$\]/\[$`\mathrm{H}_2`$\], the distance, line excitation temperature, inclination of the flow axis to the line of sight, and optical depth of the CO line. By using intensity weighted velocities rather than the maximum velocities, the values of $`t_\mathrm{d}`$ given in Table 2 may be overestimated. The flow radii $`R_{\mathrm{flow}}`$ were corrected for an inclination of 45° which is likely an overestimate for the northern outflow, but an underestimate for the southern outflow when we compare our observed line profiles, outflow structure and position-velocity maps to those of Cabrit & Bertout (Cabrit90 (1990)). In the case of the northern outflow, effects caused by taking ‘average’ velocities and a ‘standard’ inclination may cancel each other with respect to $`t_\mathrm{d}`$. In the case of the southern outflow, however, they add up so that the $`t_\mathrm{d}`$ value is an upper limit for the southern outflow. We can therefore safely conclude that the dynamical time of the northern flow is longer than that of the southern flow.

### 4.3 $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$

The $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$ $`J`$ = 3–2 emission lines were measured in the central area of the northern core (see panels c) and d) in Fig. 4). Fig. 8 shows the spectra taken towards I 20231. Strong $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ self-absorption is observed at the peak velocity of the $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$ line ($``$ 6.5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$). Weak blue- and red-shifted line wing emission is seen in the $`J`$ = 3–2 line of $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ that can be interpreted as additional evidence for outflowing gas. The asymmetry in the line showing enhanced blue-shifted emission characterizes all spectra within a radius of $``$40′′ ($``$0.2 pc) around I 20231. This is indicative of possible infall motion that will be discussed in § 6.4.

The total integrated intensity map of $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$ shows a very compact core with a deconvolved half-power size of about 20′′ by 35′′ (0.1 pc by 0.17 pc; see panel d in Fig.4). With the same method used above, we estimate a fractional $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ abundance of 9.6$`\times 10^{10}`$, about an order of magnitude lower than the typical value of $``$8$`\times `$ 10-9 in dark clouds (Irvine et al. Irvine87 (1987)), but close to the inferred value of 1$`\times 10^9`$ for envelopes of submillimeter continuum sources in the Serpens molecular cloud (Hogerheijde at al. Hogerheijde99 (1999)). This may indicate a depletion of $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ in this region, i.e. some molecules are frozen out onto the dust. The mass associated with $`\mathrm{H}^{13}\mathrm{CO}^+`$ is $``$50 M, consistent with the mass derived from $`\mathrm{C}^{17}\mathrm{O}`$.

As already mentioned, broad-line wings were detected in the $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ $`J`$ = 3–2 spectra. The outflowing emission shown in Fig.9 was integrated over a velocity range of 3 to 5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for blueshifted (solid contours) emission and 7.5 to 9 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for redshifted (dashed contours) emission, respectively. By assuming LTE at an excitation temperature $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ =20 K and optically thin outflow emission, we estimate the total mass of outflowing gas traced by $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ in the velocity range mentioned above to be 6 M, almost three times the gas flow traced by CO. This is mostly due to the inclusion of the low velocity outflowing gas which could not directly be identified in the broader line profiles of CO. We thus find a total mass of 8 M for the outflow. Although such a mass estimate depends on uncertain molecular abundances, we can conclude that a significant amount of the outflowing gas is observed at low velocities and that the total outflowing gas mass is severely underestimated by the CO data alone.

### 4.4 CS and $`\mathrm{C}^{34}\mathrm{S}`$

In contrast to CO and $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ our CS profiles show no sign of self-absorption. With a critical density of about 7$`\times `$106$`\text{cm}^3`$, the $`J`$ = 5–4 transition of CS and its isotopes traces the very dense molecular gas. While CS and $`\mathrm{C}^{34}\mathrm{S}`$ were detected towards I 20231, C33S and 13CS remain undetected with an r.m.s level of $``$20 mK and a channel separation of 0.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. A Gaussian fit to the CS $`J`$ = 5–4 profile at the (0′′,0′′) position gives a velocity of 6.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the same as that for the $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$ $`J`$ = 2–1 line but different from that of CS $`J`$ = 2–1 (Bronfman et al. Bronfman96 (1996)). We believe that this is mainly due to different optical depths, i.e., optically thick emission in the $`J`$ = 2–1 line and optically thin emission in the 5–4 line. A nine point CS map was also taken towards the southern core with the peak located at (0′′,–180′′). As shown in Table 1, the CS emission lines are weaker and narrower towards the southern peak, and the emission appears to be much more compact than that in $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$. The integrated CS intensity map (Fig.4, panel e) shows a slightly elongated structure in N-S direction with a peak about 10′′ north of I 20231.

Assuming the same excitation temperature for the $`J`$ = 5–4 lines of CS and C34S, we can estimate the CS optical depth for a given isotopic abundance ratio $`R`$ (e.g. Zinchenko et al. Zinchenko94 (1994)). With $`R`$ = 31.3 for I 20231 (Chin et al. Chin96 (1996)), the excitation temperature, the peak optical depth and the mean optical depth averaged over the line profile are estimated to be 6.5 K, 2.2 and 1.8. We then derive a CS fractional abundance of 7.8$`\times `$10-9, and a core mass of about 26 M.

While C34S $`J`$ = 5–4 was detected in the lower sideband, $`\mathrm{CH}_3\mathrm{OH}`$ 5(1)–4(1)A- (243.9158 GHz), H2CS 71,6–61,5 (244.0478GHz) and C3H2 32,1–21,2 (244.2221GHz) were detected in the upper sideband with peak intensities of 0.19, 0.10 and 0.14 K and integrated intensities of 0.63, 0.57, and 0.27 $`\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, respectively (see Fig. 10). Since these lines are all from non-linear molecules, equation (1) cannot be used to estimate the column densities. Instead, we have used a relationship between the energy of the upper level and the integrated line intensity (see e.g. Groesbeck et al. Groesbeck94 (1994)) for an optically thin transition, adopting the line strength and partition function information from the JPL line catalog (Pickett et al. Pickett98 (1998) and online at http://spec.jpl.nasa.gov). Under the assumption of LTE and optically thin line emission, taking $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$=10 K, we estimate CH3OH, H2CS and C3H2 column densities to be 6.6$`\times 10^{14}`$, 9.0$`\times 10^{13}`$ and 1.1$`\times 10^{13}`$$`\text{cm}^2`$, and thus fractional abundances to be 9.7$`\times 10^9`$, 1.3$`\times 10^9`$ and 1.6$`\times 10^{10}`$, respectively. These abundances are lower limits. If the lines are not optically thin, column densities and abundances would be higher. Note that abundances are estimated assuming that molecular lines are sampling the same volume as the 870 $`\mu `$m dust continuum emission (see § 3). This does not necessarily hold, since different molecular species and even transitions of the same species have fairly different critical densities. Multi-line observations and radiative transfer modeling are needed to test this hypothesis for I 20231.

### 4.5 Water Maser Emission

Fig. 11 shows 22 GHz water maser spectra taken with the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. As shown in the spectra, the velocity ranges of maser emission are between –40 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and +12 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with more blue features than red ones relative to the systemic velocity of 6.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The maser spectra also show time variability on a timescale $``$3 months. While the total $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ maser luminosity decreased by a factor of $``$3 from 40.8 Jy $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in July 1999 to 14.3 Jy $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in July 2000, some individual maser components showed even stronger variations. Combining our data with the water maser spectra reported by Brand et al. (Brand94 (1994)), the total $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}}`$, assuming isotropic emission, varied between 3.3$`\times `$10-7 and 1.1$`\times `$10-6L. The upper limit is consistent with what one expects for a maser associated with an IRAS source with $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}`$$``$102L (Henning et al. Henning92 (1992)). From the mapped maser emission in April 2000, almost all the maser components, e.g. those at –37.1, –8.26, 4.33, 7.59 and 11.00 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, are centered at the IRAS position within a pointing accuracy of $``$5′′, except the 2.48 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ feature which peaked at (0′′,10′′). We also observed the (0′′,–180′′) position (i.e. the southern $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ and sub-mm continuum peak), but no signal was seen at an rms noise level of 0.1 Jy (channnel spacing: 0.13 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$), which yields an upper limit of $`L_{\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}}`$ $``$ 3$`\times 10^{10}\text{L}\text{}`$.

## 5 2MASS NIR photometry

Stars within 8 diameter of I 20231 are extracted from The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS, see http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/ for details) catalogue which contains $`J`$, $`H`$ and $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ magnitudes of stars. Completeness limits in magnitude are close to 17, 16 and 15 mag in the $`J`$, $`H`$ and $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ bands, respectively. The $`JH/HK_\mathrm{s}`$ color-color diagram presented in Fig. 12 includes stars detected at least in $`H`$ and $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ with magnitudes of 6.0$``$ m($`K_\mathrm{s}`$)$``$14.3 and photometric uncertainties less than 0.2 mag in all detected bands. Sources satisfying the above criteria but not being detected in $`J`$ band are denoted with open circles. The completeness limit of 17 mag is adopted as a lower limit of $`J`$ magnitudes for these sources. While the solid curve draws the locus of points corresponding to unreddened main sequence and giant branch stars (Koornneef Koornneef83 (1983)), the two parallel dashed lines form the reddening band and are bound to the region of stars with normal photospheres (see Lada & Adams Lada92 (1992)). The sources lying to the right side of the reddening band are believed to be mostly YSOs (Lada & Adams Lada92 (1992); Lada et al. Lada93 (1993)). Careful scrutiny of the region reveals 12 YSO candidates (represented by circles labeled with sequence numbers in Fig.12, see also Fig.1). Since almost all these YSOs except for IRS1 (solid circle) were not detected in $`J`$, their positions in the color-color diagram are still uncertain. Deep photometric observations are therefore needed to confirm their YSO nature. Table 3 includes their near-infrared photometric data. From its location on the color-color diagram, we can estimate the extinction of IRS1 to be $``$15, much lower than that derived from the peak emission of the 870$`\mu `$m dust continuum ($`A_\mathrm{V}`$$``$ 100). Although the $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ estimate using dust emission is model dependent (see § 3), the difference in the extinction estimates is most likely beyond the uncertainties induced by dust properties. This may suggest that the core is structured and/or that IRS1 is not at its center, in which case SMM1 and IRS1 may not refer to the same source. This is further supported by the fact that IRS1 is located $``$8′′ ($``$0.04 pc) northwest of the 870$`\mu `$m peak (SMM1; see also § 6.2).

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 Physical properties of the two cores

Dense cores are the birthplaces of stars. Their study provides deep insights into the initial conditions of cool dense gas clouds that determine important stellar parameters like mass, metallicity, and initial rotation period. Jijina et al. (Jijina99 (1999)) compiled a catalog of 264 dense cores from $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ observations, and found that the presence of cluster associations has a dramatic effect on core gas and YSO properties. The line widths, kinetic temperatures and core sizes for cores in clusters are much larger than the corresponding physical parameters for cores in isolated star-forming environments.

The intrinsic line widths averaged over the $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ cores are 1.79 and 1.20 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the northern and the southern source, respectively. These values are very close to the cluster associated median values of 1.20 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ from the Jijina samples (samples IV and V in Jijina Jijina99 (1999)) and larger than the median values for those samples without association (samples I, II and III in Jijina et al. Jijina99 (1999)). Moreover, turbulence in both cores is predominanantly non-thermal, since for the molecule of mean mass (=1.36 m$`_{\mathrm{H}_2}`$) thermal line widths $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`v_\mathrm{T}`$ (0.63 and 0.49 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the northern and the southern core, respectively) determined from the kinetic temperature are small relative to the nonthermal line widths $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`v_{\mathrm{NT}}`$ (1.77 and 1.18 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$), obtained by subtracting in quadrature the thermal line width from the intrinsic line width averaged over the core. Further supported by substantial core masses, the two $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ cores are reminiscent of the ‘turbulent, massive dense cores’ forming clusters or groups of stars in the Jijina et al. samples, although none of the two cores seems to have more than 30 embedded stars associated. This is supported by the distribution of the YSO candidates shown in Fig. 1, in which at least six (IRS1, 2 to 6) appear to be associated with the northern core and another two with the southern one (11 and 12).

Towards the northern core, there seems to be a temperature gradient from the core center to the outermost layer. The detection of the (4,4) line of $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ yields a kinetic temperature of $``$30 K at the position of I 20231. This value is an average over the beam size of 40′′ ($``$0.2 pc) and is likely a lower limit for the region immediately surrounding I 20231, since the (4,4) line was only detected towards the IRAS position and may not have been spatially resolved. The average kinetic temperature over the rest of the core is $``$ 15 K. For regions where $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ is detectable, the density is on the order of $`10^4`$$`\text{cm}^3`$. At lower densities ($`10^{23}`$$`\text{cm}^3`$), an excitation temperature of $``$ 11 K is traced by $`\mathrm{C}^{18}\mathrm{O}`$, decreasing further to $``$ 7.5 K towards the outermost layer of the clouds (see § 4.2.1).

### 6.2 The driving sources of the outflows

The far-infrared luminosity of the IRAS source, calculated from the IRAS flux, is $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}`$=196 L (at a distance of 1 kpc). This luminosity is higher than the minimum value set by the mechanical luminosity requirement. By adopting the $`\dot{M}L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ relationship of Shepherd & Churchwell (Shepherd96 (1996)), the luminosity of the outflow source in I 20231 is predicted to be greater than 114 L. Within the error range, it suggests that the infrared source in question can provide sufficient mechanical power to drive the CO outflow.

Source IRS1, located at (3′′, 0′′), coincides well with the IRAS source I 20231 with $`K_\mathrm{s}`$=9.76 mag and $`HK_\mathrm{s}`$=1.46 mag. Immediately next to IRS1, a fainter ($`K_\mathrm{s}`$=13.33 mag) companion source 2 was found at (4′′, –11′′), appearing much redder with $`HK_\mathrm{s}`$=2.21 mag. Are they physically related? And which one is responsible for the outflow? Considering the clumpiness in outflow structure, are perhaps both stars driving the outflow? It is worth noting that the position difference between source 2 and SMM1 is 5′′, which is marginally within the pointing uncertainty of the 870$`\mu `$m observations. The question then arises on how IRS1, source 2 and SMM1 are physically related. Considering the relatively large beam (22′′) of the 870$`\mu `$m observations, higher resolution dust continuum and molecular line observations as well as some deeper NIR images are needed to answer these questions.

In the southern core, we did not find such YSO candidates close to SMM2. Although there is a much weaker (14.13 mag) $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ source located at (–3′′,–180′′), its nature is unknow since it was not detected in $`J`$ and $`H`$ and we cannot place it on the color-color diagram. Most likely the driving source of the southern outflow is still deeply embedded in the cloud. It is also less luminous than its counterpart(s) of the northern outflow.

### 6.3 Evolutionary status of the two cores

Protostars evolve from Class 0 to Class I, II, III. Class 0 sources, the youngest protostars, are characterized by $`M_{\mathrm{env}}/L_{\mathrm{bol}}>0.1`$$`\text{M}\text{}/\text{L}\text{}`$ ($`M_{\mathrm{env}}`$ is the envelope mass), no detectable emission at wavelengths shorter than $``$ 10 $`\mu `$m, and the presence of outflow (André et al. Andre93 (1993), Andre00 (2000)). At present, 42 Class 0 sources have been identified (André et al. Andre00 (2000)).

A reasonably good estimate of $`M_{\mathrm{env}}`$ can be provided by the strength of the optically thin 870 $`\mu `$m continuum emission in the 22′′ beam ($``$ 0.1 pc, the typical size of protostellar envelopes in the Taurus cloud). Following the method used in § 3, we can estimate $`M_{\mathrm{env}}`$ for SMM1 and SMM2 to be about 9 and 14 M, with their peak flux densities of 1.67 and 0.60 Jy beam-1, respectively. It is, however, worth noting that $`\beta `$ = 1.5 ($`\kappa _{870\mu \mathrm{m}}`$ = 0.02 cm2g-1 correspondingly), a value lower than the one used for mass calculations in § 3, is found to be more suitable to estimate the masses traced by the dust around protostars (e.g. Visser et al. Visser98 (1998), Visser01 (2001)). Moreover, the averaged dust temperature within a 22′′ beam could be higher than the ones used in § 3. Both effects lead to lower masses. Considering additionally that I 20231 may not be at the core center, we can safely conclude that $`M_{\mathrm{env}}/L_{\mathrm{bol}}<0.04`$M/L for SMM1, typical of a Class I source. The detection of I 20231 at 12 $`\mu `$m and 2 $`\mu `$m and the moderate strength of its CO outflow also suggest SMM1 to be a $``$ 200 L Class I YSO.

To better constrain the properties of SMM2, we first estimate the lower limit to $`M_{\mathrm{env}}`$. $`\kappa _{870\mu \mathrm{m}}`$ = 0.03 cm2g-1 is most likely an upper limit if we take the assumption from Hildebrand (Hildebrand83 (1983)), i.e. $`\kappa _\lambda =0.1(250/\lambda (\mu m))^\beta `$ cm2g-1, with $`\beta `$ = 1, which is the lower limit in star forming regions at the millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. A dust temperature of 30 K is most likely an upper limit to SMM2. These parameters yield a lower limit to the envelope mass of 1 M. Meanwhile, since there is no detectable IRAS source associated with SMM2, the sensitivity of the IRAS instruments (0.5 Jy at 12, 25, and 60 $`\mu `$m, 1.5 Jy at 100 $`\mu `$m) allow us to estimate an upper limit of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ 6 L for the luminosity of the possible source(s) embedded in the southern core. The $`M_{\mathrm{env}}/L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ ratio for SMM2 is therefore comfortably greater than 0.1 M/L, typical of a Class 0 source. Combined with the fact that SMM2 also harbors a bipolar outflow, the southern core is more likely to contain a Class 0 object with 1 M$``$ Menv$``$ 14 M.

Since outflows are found in both cores, we can also compare the evolutionary phases of the two cores by placing these two sources on the outflow efficiency versus $`M_{\mathrm{env}}/L_{\mathrm{bol}}^{0.6}`$ diagram (see fig. 7 of Bontemps et al. Bontemps96 (1996)). The outflow efficiency is the outflow force divided by the radiative momentum flux ($`L_{\mathrm{bol}}/c`$) and is $``$ 80 (or $``$ 380 also accounting for the low velocity flow traced by $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$) for the northern outflow and $`>`$220 for the southern one. Accounting for the different $`M_{\mathrm{env}}/L_{\mathrm{bol}}^{0.6}`$ values of the two cores, the northern one lies in the transit region between Class 0 and I, while the southern one lies distinctly in the region occupied by Class 0 sources. This, in agreement with the fact that the dynamical time of the northern flow is longer than that of the southern flow (see § 4.2.2), further supports the protostellar status of SMM1 (I 20231) and SMM2.

We thus conclude that the southern core is in an earlier evolutionary stage than the northern core. One may ask why there is no water maser detection in the southern core, since Class 0 sources are believed to be favorable sites for such masers (Furuya et al. Furuya01 (2001)). An answer could be that the maser is too weak to be detected at an rms level of 0.1 Jy, since according to the $`L_{\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}}L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ correlation found by Furuya et al. (Furuya01 (2001)), we expect for a protostar with $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}<6\text{L}\text{}`$ a luminosity of $`L_{\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}}1.7\times 10^{11}\text{L}\text{}`$. This is about two orders of magnitude below the estimated upper limit (see § 4.5). On the other hand, the non-detection of a $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ maser in the southern core is not inconsistent with the recent statistical study by Zhang et al. (Zhang01 (2001)) who found that the outflow may develop before the appearance of a water maser although their study is based on a sample of massive star forming regions. It is therefore also possible that the southern core has not yet reached an evolutionary stage to form a luminoous $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ maser, while an outflow was already activated.

The above disscussion is based on the assumption that SMM1 and IRS1 refer to the same source as I 20231, but this is not necessarily the case. As we have mentioned in § 5 and § 6.2, the differences in extinction ($`A_\mathrm{v}`$ $``$ 100 versus $``$ 15) and in position between SMM1 and IRS1 ($``$ 8′′ or 0.04 pc) raise the possibility that the two sources are distinct objects of the northern “cluster”. In such a case, Lbol of SMM1 would be significantly lower than the value estimated from FIR flux densities of I 20231, and as a result SMM1 might still be a Class 0 object and driving source of the northern outflow. High angular resolution observations would be required to draw definite conclusions.

### 6.4 Velocity gradients and the asymmetric line profiles

There exists a velocity gradient from north to south in all molecular spectra, indicating an internal motion. In the case of the $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ lines, the velocity increases monotonously from 5.2 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,80′′) to 6.8 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,–80′′), where there seems to be a turning point. Further south the velocity shifts back to and stays almost constant at 6.0 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Such a gradient is also found in $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ $`J`$ = 2–1, where the velocity shifts from 5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,75′′) to 6.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,-45′′). The CS $`J`$ = 5–4 line profile at the central position is quite similar to that of the $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ line, with a peak slightly skewed to low velocity. Again, the velocity increase from 4.5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,75′′) to 6.5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at (0′′,-30′′), and drops to 6.0 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ further south just like ammonia. This indicates that a boundary exists near (0′′,-100′′), separating the northern cloud (with a ‘systemic’ velocity $``$ 6.3 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) from the southern cloud (with $``$ 6.0 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$). The gradients across the northern core are 2 to 4 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{pc}^1`$, slightly larger than the typical rotation induced gradients of 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{pc}^1`$ for molecular cloud cores (Goodman et al. Goodman93 (1993)), but within the range found by Jijina et al. (Jijina99 (1999)) in their sample. As examples, we present in Fig. 13 the position-velocity maps of $`{}_{}{}^{13}\mathrm{CO}`$ $`J`$ = 2–1 (left) and $`\mathrm{NH}_3`$ (1,1) (right). Morphologically, the diagrams are consistent with a large cloud that shows overall large scale rotation. However, such an effect could also be caused by two independent cores with slightly different velocities.

The $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ $`J`$ = 3–2 profiles are of particular interest, owing to the presence of strong blue asymmetry (see § 4.3), indicating possible infall motion (Leung & Brown Leung77 (1977); Zhou Zhou92 (1992); Gregersen et al. Gregersen97 (1997)). The spatial extent ($``$ 0.2 pc) of such an asymmetry is not inconsistent with the finding of Myers et al. Myers00 (2000), who detected infall motion over a linear scale of $``$ 0.1 pc in a large number of starless cores and Class 0/I protostars. However, it is hard to study the detailed infall structure with current spatial resolution. Contamination by rotation and outflows make a clearcut interpretation even more difficult. Further high spatial resolution observations are imperative to verify such a possible infall.

## 7 Conclusions

We have presented detailed molecular line and sub-mm dust observations of the molecular cloud Lynds 870, a previously poorly studied region. The main results are:

1. Substantial molecular emission has been detected from Lynds 870. Two main cores, separated by 3, are found both in dust (SMM1 and SMM2) and molecular line emission with the northern core (SMM1) being particularly rich in molecular lines. The continuum and spectroscopic observations indicate that the northern core, centered at IRAS 20231+3440, is warmer and denser than the southern core (SMM2). A total mass of $``$70–110 M is estimated from the molecular line and the submillimeter dust emission.

2. Outflow activities are detected in both the northern and the southern core, indicative of on-going star formation in both regions. While IRAS 20231+3440 (IRS1 in $`K_\mathrm{s}`$) is found to be a Class I YSO candidate and most likely the exciting star of the northern outflow, a more deeply embedded companion (source 2 in $`K_\mathrm{s}`$) found next to IRAS 20231+3440 may also be a possible driving engine. The driving source of the southern outflow, still deeply embedded in the cloud, is most likely a Class 0 YSO candidate. The southern core (SMM2) is therefore still in an earlier evolutionary stage than the northern core (SMM1).

3. A significant amount of low velocity outflowing gas is hidden in the relatively broad systemic CO profiles tracing the quiescent gas. The low velocity outflow is, however, revealed by the $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$ emission. The total outflowing gas mass of the northern core is derived to be 8 M.

4. Possible infall motions in the northern dense core are indicated by self-absorbed $`\mathrm{HCO}^+`$$`J`$ = 3–2 line profiles with a strong blue asymmetry; its spatial extent is $``$ 0.2 pc.

5. In a diameter of 8 around IRAS 20231+3440, there are in total 12 $`K_\mathrm{s}`$ sources with a strong IR excess, typical of YSOs still embedded in their parental dust/molecular cloud. Combined with the outflows and $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$ masers found in the region, we conclude that the cloud is presently actively forming a group or a small cluster of stars.

###### Acknowledgements.

We appreciate the assistance of the HHT staff and Effelsberg-100m operators during the observations. We are grateful to Dr. D. Muders for his help in the reduction of HHT 870 $`\mu `$m continuum data. We also benefited from useful discussions with Drs. Q. Zeng, G. Sandell, and Q. Zhang. We thank the referee whose helpful comments and suggestions greatly helped to improved the paper. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. R.Q.M. acknowledges support by the exchange program between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. This work was supported in part by grants 19625307 from NSFC & G19990754 from CMST.