2 research outputs found
The star-forming content of the W3 giant molecular cloud
We have surveyed a ~0.9-square-degree area of the W3 giant molecular cloud
and star-forming region in the 850-micron continuum, using the SCUBA bolometer
array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. A complete sample of 316 dense
clumps was detected with a mass range from around 13 to 2500 Msun. Part of the
W3 GMC is subject to an interaction with the HII region and fast stellar winds
generated by the nearby W4 OB association. We find that the fraction of total
gas mass in dense, 850-micron traced structures is significantly altered by
this interaction, being around 5% to 13% in the undisturbed cloud but ~25 - 37%
in the feedback-affected region. The mass distribution in the detected clump
sample depends somewhat on assumptions of dust temperature and is not a simple,
single power law but contains significant structure at intermediate masses.
This structure is likely to be due to crowding of sources near or below the
spatial resolution of the observations. There is little evidence of any
difference between the index of the high-mass end of the clump mass function in
the compressed region and in the unaffected cloud. The consequences of these
results are discussed in terms of current models of triggered star formation.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 1 table (full source table available on
request). Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society (Main Journal
Multiwavelength Studies of Young OB Associations
We discuss how contemporary multiwavelength observations of young
OB-dominated clusters address long-standing astrophysical questions: Do
clusters form rapidly or slowly with an age spread? When do clusters expand and
disperse to constitute the field star population? Do rich clusters form by
amalgamation of smaller subclusters? What is the pattern and duration of
cluster formation in massive star forming regions (MSFRs)? Past observational
difficulties in obtaining good stellar censuses of MSFRs have been alleviated
in recent studies that combine X-ray and infrared surveys to obtain rich,
though still incomplete, censuses of young stars in MSFRs. We describe here one
of these efforts, the MYStIX project, that produced a catalog of 31,784
probable members of 20 MSFRs. We find that age spread within clusters are real
in the sense that the stars in the core formed after the cluster halo. Cluster
expansion is seen in the ensemble of (sub)clusters, and older dispersing
populations are found across MSFRs. Direct evidence for subcluster merging is
still unconvincing. Long-lived, asynchronous star formation is pervasive across
MSFRs.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. To appear in "The Origin of Stellar Clusters",
edited by Steven Stahler, Springer, 2017, in pres