The evolution of carbon-chain chemistry from prestellar to protostellar cores in Taurus Molecular Cloud.

The discovery of abundant carbon-chain molecules in protostellar cores motivates the development of the warm carbon-chain chemistry. To understand the role of warm carbon-chain chemistry in star-forming regions, we studied C₂H and c-C₃H₂ in 15 embedded protostars in the Taurus molecular cloud, whose evolutionary stages range from prestellar to Class I/II, using data from the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT). We calculated the excitation temperature, column density, and abundance of C₂H and c-C₃H₂ in each source. We compared those properties with evolutionary indicators of the protostars. We also estimated the kinetic temperature using RADEX. Finally, we compared the abundance of C₂H and c-C₃H₂ in our survey with that in the survey of protostellar cores in the Perseus molecular cloud. While we are unable to identify new WCCCs, our results suggest that the abundances of C₂H and c-C₃H₂ could be an indicator to find WCCC candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]