Robustness of Synthetic Observations in Producing Observed Core
  Properties: Predictions for the TolTEC Clouds to Cores Legacy Survey
  We use hydrodynamical simulations of star-forming gas with stellar feedback
and sink particles (proxies for young stellar objects, i.e., YSOs) to produce
and analyze synthetic 1.1mm continuum observations at different distances (150
- 1000pc) and ages (0.49 - 1.27 Myr). We characterize how the inferred core
properties, including mass, size, and clustering with respect to diffuse natal
gas structure, change with distance, cloud evolution, and the presence of YSOs.
We find that atmospheric filtering and core segmentation treatments have
distance-dependent impacts on the resulting core properties for d < 300pc and
500pc, respectively, which dominate over evolutionary differences.
Concentrating on synthetic observations at further distances (650-1000pc), we
find a growing separation between the inferred sizes and masses of cores with
and without YSOs in the simulations, which is not seen in recent observations
of the Mon R2 cloud at 860pc. We find that the synthetic cores cluster in
smaller groups, and their mass densities are correlated with gas column density
over a much narrower range, than the Mon R2 observations. Such differences
limit applicability of the evolutionary predictions we report here and motivate
future efforts to adapt our synthetic observation and analysis framework to
next generation simulations such as STARFORGE. These predictions and systematic
characterizations will help guide analysis of cores for the upcoming TolTEC
Clouds to Cores Legacy Survey on the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano
(LMT).
