A search for radio continuum emission from young stellar objects in Bok globules

We present results of a VLA-D search of 3.6 cm continuum emission toward a selected sample of Bok globules carried out to better characterize their stellar contents. A total of forty-one radio sources were detected. Eleven of these sources are located within the optical extent of the globules and may correspond to embedded sources, We identify seven candidates to protostars of Class 0, We also identify five globules without any sign of star formation in infrared or centimeter wavelengths. These starless globules are candidates to being ideal laboratories for studying the physical conditions of pre-collapsing cloud cores. Virtually all the globules with positive radio continuum detections were also previously found to have associated molecular outflows. This result supports the scenario in which the radio continuum emission arises from shock-ionized circumstellar gas. (C) 1996 American Astronomical Society.