Nest of molecular outflows in the Circinus cloud

We report on the discovery of a large and bright molecular outflow associated with an intense CO clump in the Circinus cloud, which was detected with the CO (J = 1-0) emission line using the new Nagoya 4 meter radio telescope "Nanten" installed at Las Campanas Observatory (Chile). The outflow is quite large, extending over an area of 10' x 20' (similar to 4 x 8 pc at its distance of 1.26 kpc) that covers most of the clump surface, and having very high radio brightness; actually, the CO brightness of the high velocity wings integrated over the outflow lobes amounts to as high as 1.5 x 10(-1) K km s(-1)deg(2), which makes this CO outflow one of the brightest reported so far. The outflow is also massive (similar to 50 M.) and energetic (similar to 4300 M. km(2)s(-2)). The outflow exhibits a complex morphology, having 2 local peaks at each of the red- and blue-shifted lobes. Comparing the outflow morphology with the locations of the protostellar candidates selected from the IRAS Point Source Catalog, we conclude that the detected outflow is most likely to be driven by at least 4 distinct protostars forming in the clump, namely, IRAS 14562-6248, 14563-6301, 14564-6254, and 14568-6304. Thereby, we suggest to designate the CO clump as the "Nest of Molecular Outflows" in the Circinus cloud.