CLOUD-CLOUD COLLISION AS A TRIGGER OF THE HIGH-MASS STAR FORMATION: A MOLECULAR LINE STUDY IN RCW 120

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 806; no. 1; pp. 7 - 27
• Main Authors: Torii, K., Hasegawa, K., Hattori, Y., Sano, H., Ohama, A., Yamamoto, H., Tachihara, K., Soga, S., Shimizu, S., Okuda, T., Mizuno, N., Onishi, T., Mizuno, A., Fukui, Y.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States The American Astronomical Society 10.06.2015
• Subjects: ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; CARBON MONOXIDE; CLOUDS; COLLISIONS; ISM: clouds; MASS; MILKY WAY; MORPHOLOGY; radio lines: ISM; SPACE; SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION; STARS; TELESCOPES; ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION; VELOCITY
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/806/1/7

ABSTRACT RCW 120 is a Galactic H ii region that has a beautiful ring shape that is bright in the infrared. Our new CO J = 1-0 and J = 3-2 observations performed with the NANTEN2, Mopra, and ASTE telescopes have revealed that two molecular clouds with a velocity separation of 20 km s−1 are both physically associated with RCW 120. The cloud at −8 km s−1 apparently traces the infrared ring, while the other cloud at −28 km s−1 is distributed just outside the opening of the infrared ring, interacting with the H ii region as suggested by the high kinetic temperature of the molecular gas and by the complementary distribution with the ionized gas. A spherically expanding shell driven by the H ii region is usually considered to be the origin of the observed ring structure in RCW 120. Our observations, however, indicate no evidence of the expanding motion in the velocity space, which is inconsistent with the expanding shell model. We postulate an alternative that, by applying the model introduced by Habe & Ohta, the exciting O star in RCW 120 was formed by a collision between the present two clouds at a collision velocity of ∼30 km s−1. In the model, the observed infrared ring can be interpreted as the cavity created in the larger cloud by the collision, whose inner surface is illuminated by the strong ultraviolet radiation after the birth of the O star. We discuss that the present cloud-cloud collision scenario explains the observed signatures of RCW 120, i.e., its ring morphology, coexistence of the two clouds and their large velocity separation, and absence of the expanding motion.