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The dynamical processes that control star formation in molecular clouds arenot well understood, and in particular, it is unclear if rotation plays a majorrole in cloud evolution. We investigate the importance of rotation in cloudevolution by studying the kinematic structure of a spiral-shaped Galacticmolecular cloud G052.24+00.74. The cloud belongs to a large filament, and isstretching over ~ 100 pc above the Galactic disk midplane. The spiral-shapedmorphology of the cloud suggests that the cloud is rotating. We have analysedthe kinematic structure of the cloud, and study the fragmentation and starformation. We find that the cloud exhibits a regular velocity pattern alongwest-east direction - a velocity shift of ~ 10 km/s at a scale of ~ 30 pc. Thekinematic structure of the cloud can be reasonably explained by a model thatassumes rotational support. Similarly to our Galaxy, the cloud rotates with aprograde motion. We use the formalism of Toomre (1964) to study the cloud'sstability, and find that it is unstable and should fragment. The separation ofclumps can be consistently reproduced assuming gravitational instability,suggesting that fragmentation is determined by the interplay between rotationand gravity. Star formation occurs in massive, gravitational bound clumps.

Revealing a spiral-shaped molecular cloud in our galaxy - Cloud fragmentation under rotation and gravity