Herschel Gould Belt Survey Observations of Dense Cores in the Cepheus
  Flare Clouds
  We present Herschel SPIRE and PACS maps of the Cepheus Flare clouds L1157,
L1172, L1228, L1241, and L1251, observed by the Herschel Gould Belt Survey
(HGBS) of nearby star-forming molecular clouds. Through modified blackbody fits
to the SPIRE and PACS data, we determine typical cloud column densities of
0.5-1.0 $\times$ 10$^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$ and typical cloud temperatures of 14-15 K.
Using the getsources identification algorithm, we extract 832 dense cores from
the SPIRE and PACS data at 160-500 $\mu$m. From placement in a mass vs. size
diagram, we consider 303 to be candidate prestellar cores, and 178 of these to
be "robust" prestellar cores. From an independent extraction of sources at 70
$\mu$m, we consider 25 of the 832 dense cores to be protostellar. The
distribution of background column densities coincident with candidate
prestellar cores peaks at 2-4 $\times$ 10$^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$. About half of the
candidate prestellar cores in Cepheus may have formed due to the widespread
fragmentation expected to occur within filaments of "transcritical" line mass.
The lognormal robust prestellar core mass function (CMF) drawn from all five
Cepheus clouds peaks at 0.56 M$_{\odot}$ and has a width of $\sim$0.5 dex,
similar to that of Aquila's CMF. Indeed, the width of Cepheus' aggregate CMF is
similar to the stellar system Initial Mass Function (IMF). The similarity of
CMF widths in different clouds and the system IMF suggests a common, possibly
turbulent origin for seeding the fluctuations that evolve into prestellar cores
and stars.
