Cluster formation triggered by filament collisions in Serpens South

The Serpens South infrared dark cloud consists of several filamentary ridges, some of which fragment into dense clumps. On the basis of CCS (J _N = 4₃-3₂), HC₃N (J = 5-4), N ₂H⁺ (J = 1-0), and SiO (J = 2-1, v = 0) observations, we investigated the kinematics and chemical evolution of these filamentary ridges. We find that CCS is extremely abundant along the main filament in the protocluster clump. We emphasize that Serpens South is the first cluster-forming region where extremely strong CCS emission is detected. The CCS-to-N ₂H⁺ abundance ratio is estimated to be about 0.5 toward the protocluster clump, whereas it is about 3 in the other parts of the main filament. We identify six dense ridges with different V_LSR. These ridges appear to converge toward the protocluster clump, suggesting that the collisions of these ridges may have triggered cluster formation. The collisions presumably happened within a few × 10⁵ yr because CCS is abundant only for a short time. The short lifetime agrees with the fact that the number fraction of Class I objects, whose typical lifetime is 0.4 × 10⁵ yr, is extremely high, about 70% in the protocluster clump. In the northern part, two ridges appear to have partially collided, forming a V-shape clump. In addition, we detected strong bipolar SiO emission that is due to the molecular outflow blowing out of the protostellar clump, as well as extended weak SiO emission that may originate from the filament collisions.