The Structure of an 80 pc Long Massive Filament

Abstract

Using new Institut de Radioastronomie Millim\'etrique (IRAM) 30m telescope $\rm N_2H^+$, $\rm C^{18}O$ $J$=1-0 and Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope $\rm ^{13}CO$ and $\rm C^{18}O$ $J$=2-1 maps together with archival far-infrared continuum data, and $\rm ^{12}CO$, and $\rm ^{13}CO$ $J$=1-0 data, we present a comprehensive analysis of the massive filament CFG024.00$+$0.48 (G24) across clump-to-cloud scales. Our results show that G24 is an $\sim$80 pc giant filament with a total mass of $\sim$$10^5$ M$_{\odot}$. In the different tracers the filament width is measured to be about $\sim$2 times the beam size of the observations, as expected for power-law density distributions, giving beam-deconvolved widths in the range from 0.8 to 2.8 pc. We determine a line-of-sight thickness of $\sim$2.2 pc demonstrating that G24 is not an edge-on, flatten structure. The virial parameter obtained from line mass ($\alpha_{\rm line,vir}=M_{\rm line,vir}/M_{\rm line}$) from the $\rm C^{18}O$ (1-0) data is 0.85, and that obtained from $Herschel$-based H$_2$ column density is 0.52, suggesting G24 is globally close to virial equilibrium. The distribution of the 40 dust clumps appears to have a ''two-tier'' fragmentation pattern. For the clump groups, the separation, with a mean/median of 3.68/3.46 pc, is very close to expected length associated with the maximum fragmentation growth rate of $\lambda_{\rm max}=3.55 \pm0.32$ pc estimated for the dust. However, the longitudinal centroid velocity profiles of $\rm C^{18}O$ and $\rm N_2H^+$ show oscillation patterns with wavelengths of 9.8$\pm$0.1 pc and 9.9$\pm$0.1 pc, respectively. This is $\sim$2 times larger than the corresponding values of $\lambda_{\rm max}$ of 4.96$\pm$0.63 pc and 4.65$\pm$1.34 pc, respectively. This suggests that the velocity structure is not dominated by flows directly associated with the fragmentation seen in the dust emission.