1. Introduction: The Herschel Gould Belt survey
2. The Aquila Rift region
3. Observations and data reduction
PACS data reduction
SPIRE data reduction
4. Results and analysis
4.1. Dust temperature and column density maps
4.2. Filamentary structure of the Aquila cloud complex
4.3. Distribution of mass in the Aquila cloud
4.4. Multiwavelength core extraction with getsources
4.5. Selection and classification of reliable core detections
4.6. Derived core properties
4.7. Selecting self-gravitating prestellar cores
4.8. Completeness of the prestellar core survey
5. Discussion
5.1. Lifetimes of Herschel prestellar cores
5.2. Evidence of a column density threshold for prestellar core formation
5.3. Spatial distribution of Herschel cores and connection with filaments
5.4. Mass budget in the cloud and interpretation of the star formation threshold in terms of the filamentary structure
5.5. Prestellar CMF and link with the IMF
5.6. A quasi-universal efficiency of the star formation process in dense gas?
6. Summary and conclusions