Abstract
The COordinated Molecular Probe Line Extinction Thermal Emission (COMPLETE) Survey of Star Forming Regions collaboration has finished mapping the Perseus molecular cloud in ^{12}CO and ^{13}CO 1 → 0, covering an area of ≈ 2°×7° with the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO) (Ridge et al. 2006).
We applied the Clumpfind algorithm (Williams et al. 1994) to our ^{13}CO 1 → 0 transition data-cube with 4 different set of parameters. Using this molecular line as a density tracer we can estimate the mass for each clump found by Clumpfind. Assuming a distance of ∼ 260 pc and an abundance of 2.18×10^{-6} with respect to H_2, we derived the Clump Mass Function (CMF) and the Virial Parameter (Betoldi & McKee, 1992).
The CMFs can be fitted with a broken power-law above 1 M_☉, where all CMDs match. The exponents are 1.2 and 2.9, where the Salpeter slope is 2.35, with the turn over around 10M_☉. Below ∼ 1 M_☉ a different plateau is reached for each set of parameters. The results show that the virial parameter is smaller for the most massive objects, but there is a lack of clumps with virial parameter less than unity. This could be due to depletion of ^{13}CO in the most massive objects or due to a sensitivity limit.
