Distribution and Properties of Molecular Gas Toward the Monoceros OB1 Region

We perform a comprehensive CO study toward the Monoceros OB1 (Mon OB1) region based on the MWISP survey at an angular resolution of about 50”. The high-sensitivity data, together with the high dynamic range, shows that molecular gas in the 8^∘×4^∘ region displays complicated hierarchical structures and various morphology (e.g., filamentary, cavity-like, shell-like, and other irregular structures). Based on Gaussian decomposition and clustering for ^13CO data, a total of 263 ^13CO structures are identified in the whole region, and 88% of raw data flux is recovered. The dense gas with relatively high column density from the integrated CO emission is mainly concentrated in the region where multiple ^13CO structures are overlapped. Combining the results of 32 large ^13CO structures with distances from Gaia DR3, we estimate an average distance of 729^+45_-45 pc for the GMC complex. The total mass of the GMC Complex traced by ^12CO, ^13CO, and C^18O are 1.1×10^5 M_⊙, 4.3×10^4 M_⊙, and 8.4×10^3 M_⊙, respectively. The dense gas fraction shows a clear difference between Mon OB1 GMC East (12.4%) and Mon OB1 GMC West (3.3%). Our results show that the dense gas environment is closely linked to the nearby star-forming regions. On the other hand, star-forming activities have a great influence on the physical properties of the surrounding molecular gas (e.g., greater velocity dispersion, higher temperatures, and more complex velocity structures, etc.). We also discuss the distribution/kinematics of molecular gas associated with nearby star-forming activities.