Spectroscopic signatures of infall in young protostellar systems

Abstract

We present the first radiative transfer calculations of millimeter and submillimeter molecular line emission from 'self-consistent' models of nonspherical, collapsing, rotating protostellar systems. We find that: (1) the morphology of the gas and dust emission is a strong function of collapse time and angular resolution, (2) centroid velocity maps can provide a distinct infall signature, and (3) the unambiguous detection of infall toward binary systems becomes more difficult with increasing binary separation.