Catalog of dense cores in Oph molecular cloud

With the unique far-infrared and submillimeter continuum imaging capabilities of the Herschel Space observatory, the closeby (d=139pc) Ophiuchus cloud was mapped at five wavelengths from 70 microns to 500 microns with the aim of providing a complete census of dense cores in this region, including unbound starless cores, bound prestellar cores, and protostellar cores.

Taking advantage of the high dynamic range and multi-wavelength nature of the Herschel data, we used the multi-scale decomposition algorithms getsources and getfilaments to identify a complete sample of dense cores and filaments in the cloud and study their properties. The densest clouds of the Ophiuchus complex, L1688 and L1689, which thus far are only indirectly described as filamentary regions owing to the spatial distribution of their young stellar objects (YSOs), are confirmed to be dominated by filamentary structures.