The ALMA-QUARKS Survey. II. The ACA 1.3 mm Continuum Source Catalog and the Assembly of Dense Gas in Massive Star-Forming Clumps

Abstract

Leveraging the high resolution, sensitivity, and wide frequency coverage of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the QUARKS survey, standing for “Querying Underlying mechanisms of massive star formation with ALMA-Resolved gas Kinematics and Structures”, is observing 139 massive star-forming clumps at ALMA Band 6 (λ ∼ 1.3 mm). This paper introduces the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) 7 m data of the QUARKS survey, describing the ACA observations and data reduction. Combining multi-wavelength data, we provide the first edition of QUARKS atlas, offering insights into the multiscale and multiphase interstellar medium in high-mass star formation. The ACA 1.3 mm catalog includes 207 continuum sources that are called ACA sources. Their gas kinetic temperatures are estimated using three formaldehyde transitions with a non-LTE radiation transfer model, and the mass and density are derived from a dust emission model. The ACA sources are massive (16–84 percentile values of 6–160 M ⊙), gravity-dominated (M ∝ R 1.1) fragments within massive clumps, with supersonic turbulence ( M>1 ) and embedded star-forming protoclusters. We find a linear correlation between the masses of the fragments and the massive clumps, with a ratio of 6% between the two. When considering fragments as representative of dense gas, the ratio indicates a dense gas fraction (DGF) of 6%, although with a wide scatter ranging from 1% to 10%. If we consider the QUARKS massive clumps to be what is observed at various scales, then the size-independent DGF indicates a self-similar fragmentation or collapsing mode in protocluster formation. With the ACA data over four orders of magnitude of luminosity-to-mass ratio (L/M), we find that the DGF increases significantly with L/M, which indicates clump evolutionary stage. We observed a limited fragmentation at the subclump scale, which can be explained by a dynamic global collapse process.