Ammonia observations towards the Aquila Rift cloud complex
  We surveyed the Aquila Rift complex including the Serpens South and W40
region in the NH$_3$(1,1) and (2,2) transitions making use of the Nanshan 26-m
telescope. The kinetic temperatures of the dense gas in the Aquila Rift complex
range from 8.9 to 35.0K with an average of 15.3$\pm$6.1K. Low gas temperatures
associate with Serpens South ranging from 8.9 to 16.8K with an average
12.3$\pm$1.7K, while dense gas in the W40 region shows higher temperatures
ranging from 17.7 to 35.0K with an average of 25.1$\pm$4.9 K. A comparison of
kinetic temperatures against HiGal dust temperatures indicates that the gas and
dust temperatures are in agreement in the low mass star formation region of
Serpens South. In the high mass star formation region W40, the measured gas
kinetic temperatures are higher than those of the dust. The turbulent component
of the velocity dispersion of NH$_3$(1,1) is found to be positively correlated
with the gas kinetic temperature, which indicates that the dense gas may be
heated by dissipation of turbulent energy. For the fractional total-NH3
abundance obtained by a comparison with Herschel infrared continuum data
representing dust emission we find values from 0.1 to 21$\times 10^{-8}$ with
an average of 6.9$(\pm 4.5)\times 10^{-8}$. Serpens South also shows a
fractional total-NH3 abundance ranging from 0.2 to 21$\times 10^{-8}$ with an
average of 8.6($\pm 3.8)\times 10^{-8}$. In W40, values are lower, between 0.1
and 4.3$\times 10^{-8}$ with an average of 1.6($\pm 1.4)\times 10^{-8}$. Weak
velocity gradients demonstrate that the rotational energy is a negligible
fraction of the gravitational energy. In W40, gas and dust temperatures are not
strongly dependent on the projected distance to the recently formed massive
stars. Overall, the morphology of the mapped region is ring-like, with strong
emission at lower and weak emission at higher Galactic longitudes.
