2017ApJ...850L...2A

We report the discovery of an extremely young protostar, SMM11, located in the associated submillimeter condensation in the Serpens Main cluster using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) during its Cycle 3 at 1.3 mm and an angular resolution of ∼0′′ / . 5∼210 AU. SMM11 is a Class 0 protostar without any counterpart at 70 µm or shorter wavelengths. The ALMA observations show 1.3 mm continuum emission associated with a collimated ¹²CO bipolar outflow. Spitzer and Herschel data show that SMM11 is extremely cold (T_bol = 26 K) and faint (L_bol  0.9 L_☉). We estimate the inclination angle of the outflow to be ∼80^○, almost parallel to the plane of the sky, from simple fitting using a wind-driven-shell model. The continuum visibilities consist of Gaussian and power-law components, suggesting a spherical envelope with a radius of ∼600 au around the protostar. The estimated low C¹⁸O abundance, X(C¹⁸O) = 1.5-3  × 10^–10, is also consistent with its youth. The high outflow velocity, a few 10 km s^–1 at a few 1000 au, is much higher than theoretical simulations of first hydrostatic cores, and we suggest that SMM11 is a transitional object right after the second collapse of the first core.