Distribution and Properties of Molecular Gas toward the Monoceros OB1 Region

Abstract

We perform a comprehensive CO study toward the Monoceros OB1 (Mon OB1) region based on the Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting survey at an angular resolution of about 50″. The high-sensitivity data, together with the high dynamic range, show that molecular gas in the 8° × 4° region displays complicated hierarchical structures and various morphology (e.g., filamentary, cavity-like, shell-like, and other irregular structures). Based on Gaussian decomposition and clustering for 13CO data, a total of 263 13CO structures are identified in the whole region, and 88% of raw data flux is recovered. The dense gas with relatively high column density from the integrated CO emission is mainly concentrated in the region where multiple 13CO structures are overlapped. Combining the results of 32 large 13CO structures with distances from Gaia DR3, we estimate an average distance of 729 − 45 + 45 pc for the giant molecular cloud (GMC) complex. The total mass of the GMC complex traced by 12CO, 13CO, and C18O is 1.1 × 105 M ⊙, 4.3 × 104 M ⊙, and 8.4 × 103 M ⊙, respectively. The dense gas fraction shows a clear difference between Mon OB1 GMC East (12.4%) and Mon OB1 GMC West (3.3%). Our results show that the dense gas environment is closely linked to the nearby star-forming regions. On the other hand, star-forming activities have a great influence on the physical properties of the surrounding molecular gas (larger velocity dispersion, higher temperatures, more complex velocity structures, etc.). We also discuss the distribution/kinematics of molecular gas associated with nearby star-forming activities.