  We present first results from the Herschel Gould Belt survey for the
B211/L1495 region in the Taurus molecular cloud. Thanks to their high
sensitivity and dynamic range, the Herschel images reveal the structure of the
dense, star-forming filament B211 with unprecedented detail, along with the
presence of striations perpendicular to the filament and generally oriented
along the magnetic field direction as traced by optical polarization vectors.
Based on the column density and dust temperature maps derived from the Herschel
data, we find that the radial density profile of the B211 filament approaches a
power-law behavior {\rho} {\propto} r^(-2.0{\pm}0.4) at large radii and that
the temperature profile exhibits a marked drop at small radii. The observed
density and temperature profiles of the B211 filament are in good agreement
with a theoretical model of a cylindrical filament undergoing gravitational
contraction with a polytropic equation of state: P {\propto} {\rho}^{\gamma}
and T {\propto} {\rho}^({\gamma}-1), with {\gamma}=0.97{\pm}0.01<1 (i.e. not
strictly isothermal). The morphology of the column density map, where some of
the perpendicular striations are apparently connected to the B211 filament,
further suggests that the material may be accreting along the striations onto
the main filament. The typical velocities expected for the infalling material
in this picture are ~0.5-1 km/s, which are consistent with the existing
kinematical constraints from previous CO observations.
