Catalog of dense cores in Vela C from Herschel

Almost 78% (329 of 421) of the starless cores were identified with the gravitationally bound prestellar cores. The exponent of the CMF (alpha=1.35) is identical to that of the Salpeter IMF. The high-resolution surface density image helped us determine and subtract backgrounds and measure sizes of the structures.

We selected 68 filaments with at least one side that appeared not blended with adjacent structures. The filament widths are in the range of 0.15pc to 0.63pc, and have a median value of W=0.3(0.11)pc. The surface densities of filaments are well correlated with their contrasts and linear densities.

Within uncertainties of the filament instability criterion, many filaments (39) may well be both supercritical and subcritical. A large fraction of filaments (29) may definitely be considered supercritical, in which are found 94 prestellar cores, 83 protostellar cores, and only 1 unbound starless core. Taking into account the uncertainties, the supercritical filaments contain only prestellar and protostellar cores.

Our findings support the idea that there exists a direct relationship between the CMF and IMF and that filaments play a key role in the formation of prestellar cores, which is consistent with the previous Herschel results.