California molecular cloud CO datacubes

Two star-forming filaments (# 8 and # 10) stand out since they harbor quasi-periodic chains of dense cores with a typical projected core spacing of ~0.15pc. These two filaments have thermally supercritical line masses and are not static. Filament 8 exhibits a prominent transverse velocity gradient, suggesting that it is accreting gas from the parent cloud gas reservoir at an estimated rate of ~40+/-10M_{sun}_/Myr/pc.

Filament 10 includes two embedded protostars with outflows and it is likely at a somewhat later evolutionary stage than filament 8. In both cases, the observed (projected) core spacing is similar to the filament width and significantly shorter than the canonical separation of ~4 times the filament width predicted by classical cylinder fragmentation theory. It is unlikely that projection effects can explain this discrepancy.

We suggest that the continuous accretion of gas onto the two star-forming filaments, as well as the geometrical bending of the filaments, may account for the observed core spacing. Our findings suggest that the characteristic fragmentation lengthscale of molecular filaments is quite sensitive to external perturbations from the parent cloud, such as the gravitational accretion of ambient material.