2009ApJ...693.1803S

X-ray images of two small dark clouds, L1455 and L723, have been obtained with the EPIC cameras on board the XMM-Newton telescope. Both regions contain multiple independent but overlapping bipolar flows in high-velocity CO, a collection of Herbig-Haro objects, and a number of filaments and knots of H₂emission. The field of view in each cloud was centered on the confluence of the nearly orthogonal CO flows. More than three dozen compact X-ray sources were detected. However, the Class 0/I protostars thought to be the driving sources of the flows in both clouds were not detected. Strong emission was observed from RNO 15, an optically visible, nebulous T Tauri star in the dense core of L1455. A thermal plasma model for the X-ray spectrum of RNO 15 gave a luminosity of L_X∼ 10^31.2 erg/s. The heavily reddened Class II star L1455 IRS 5 in the same region was detected as a weak X-ray source. No emission was detected from IRS 1 or IRS 4, which have been suggested as the launch sites for separate outflows in L1455. X-ray emission was observed from IRAS 19156+1906 in L723. The thermal radio source VLA 2, which is offset ∼10'' east of the IRAS position and is considered the most likely energy source for the strong east-west flow in L723, was not detected. The source of the more narrowly collimated north-south flow in L723 is unknown but may be an embedded infrared object at the X-ray and IRAS position.