The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: First results from SCUBA-2 observations of
  the Cepheus Flare Region
  We present observations of the Cepheus Flare obtained as part of the James
Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Gould Belt Legacy Survey (GBLS) with the SCUBA-2
instrument. We produce a catalogue of sources found by SCUBA-2, and separate
these into starless cores and protostars. We determine masses and densities for
each of our sources, using source temperatures determined by the Herschel Gould
Belt Survey. We compare the properties of starless cores in four different
molecular clouds: L1147/58, L1172/74, L1251 and L1228. We find that the core
mass functions for each region typically show shallower-than-Salpeter
behaviour. We find that L1147/58 and L1228 have a high ratio of starless cores
to Class II protostars, while L1251 and L1174 have a low ratio, consistent with
the latter regions being more active sites of current star formation, while the
former are forming stars less actively. We determine that, if modelled as
thermally-supported Bonnor-Ebert spheres, most of our cores have stable
configurations accessible to them. We estimate the external pressures on our
cores using archival $^{13}$CO velocity dispersion measurements and find that
our cores are typically pressure-confined, rather than gravitationally bound.
We perform a virial analysis on our cores, and find that they typically cannot
be supported against collapse by internal thermal energy alone, due primarily
to the measured external pressures. This suggests that the dominant mode of
internal support in starless cores in the Cepheus Flare is either non-thermal
motions or internal magnetic fields.
