Hipparcos distances of Ophiuchus and Lupus cloud complexes

We combine extinction maps from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) with Hipparcos and Tycho parallaxes to obtain reliable and high-precision estimates of the distance to the Ophiuchus and Lupus dark complexes. Our analysis, based on a rigorous maximum-likelihood approach, shows that the rho-Ophiuchi cloud is located at (119 +/- 6) pc and the Lupus complex is located at (155 +/- 8) pc; in addition, we are able to put constraints on the thickness of the clouds and on their orientation on the sky (both these effects are not included in the error estimate quoted above). For Ophiuchus, we find some evidence that the streamers are closer to us than the core. The method applied in this paper is currently limited to nearby molecular clouds, but it will find many natural applications in the GAIA-era, when it will be possible to pin down the distance and three-dimensional structure of virtually every molecular cloud in the Galaxy.Comment: A&A in press - Corrected typo (Lupus distance) in the electronic abstrac

Larson's third law and the universality of molecular cloud structure

Larson (1981) first noted a scaling relation between masses and sizes in molecular clouds that implies that these objects have approximately constant column densities. This original claim, based upon millimeter observations of carbon monoxide lines, has been challenged by many theorists, arguing that the apparent constant column density observed is merely the result of the limited dynamic range of observations, and that in reality clouds have column density variations over two orders of magnitudes. In this letter we investigate a set of nearby molecular clouds with near-infrared excess methods, which guarantee very large dynamic ranges and robust column density measurements, to test the validity of Larson's third law. We verify that different clouds have almost identical average column densities above a given extinction threshold; this holds regardless of the extinction threshold, but the actual average surface mass density is a function of the specific threshold used. We show that a second version of Larson's third law, involving the mass-radius relation for single clouds and cores, does not hold in our sample, indicating that individual clouds are not objects that can be described by constant column density. Our results instead indicate that molecular clouds are characterized by a universal structure. Finally we point out that this universal structure can be linked to the log-normal nature of cloud column density distributions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, A&A in press (letter

APM z>4 QSO Survey: Distribution and Evolution of High Column Density HI Absorbers

Eleven candidate damped Lya absorption systems were identified in 27 spectra of the quasars from the APM z>4 survey covering the redshift range 2.83.5). High resolution echelle spectra (0.8A FWHM) have been obtained for three quasars, including 2 of the highest redshift objects in the survey. Two damped systems have confirmed HI column densities of N(HI) >= 10^20.3 atoms cm^-2, with a third falling just below this threshold. We have discovered the highest redshift damped Lya absorber known at z=4.383 in QSO BR1202-0725. The APM QSOs provide a substantial increase in the redshift path available for damped surveys for z>3. We combine this high redshift sample with other quasar samples covering the redshift range 0.008 < z < 4.7 to study the redshift evolution and the column density distribution function for absorbers with log N(HI)>=17.2. In the HI column density distribution f(N)=kN^-beta we find evidence for breaks in the power law, flattening for 17.221.2. The column density distribution function for the data with log N(HI)>=20.3 is better fit with the form f(N)=(f*/N*)(N/N*)^-beta exp(-N/N*). Significant redshift evolution in the number density per unit redshift is evident in the higher column density systems with an apparent decline in N(z) for z>3.5.Comment: To appear in MNRAS. Latex file (10 pages of text) plus 14 separate postscript figure files. Requires mn.sty. Postscript version with figures embedded is available at http://www.ociw.edu/~lisa/publications.htm

Evolution of Neutral Gas at High Redshift -- Implications for the Epoch of Galaxy Formation

Though observationally rare, damped Lya absorption systems dominate the mass density of neutral gas in the Universe. Eleven high redshift damped Lya systems covering 2.84 QSO Survey, extending these absorption system surveys to the highest redshifts currently possible. Combining our new data set with previous surveys we find that the cosmological mass density in neutral gas, omega_g, does not rise as steeply prior to z~2 as indicated by previous studies. There is evidence in the observed omega_g for a flattening at z~2 and a possible turnover at z~3. When combined with the decline at z>3.5 in number density per unit redshift of damped systems with column densities log N(HI)>21 atoms cm^-2, these results point to an epoch at z>3 prior to which the highest column density damped systems are still forming. We find that over the redshift range 2<z<4 the total mass in neutral gas is marginally comparable with the total visible mass in stars in present day galaxies. However, if one considers the total mass visible in stellar disks alone, ie excluding galactic bulges, the two values are comparable. We are observing a mass of neutral gas comparable to the mass of visible disk stars. Lanzetta, Wolfe & Turnshek (1995) found that omega_g(z~3.5) was twice omega_g(z~2), implying a much larger amount of star formation must have taken place between z=3.5 and z=2 than is indicated by metallicity studies. This created a `cosmic G-dwarf problem'. The more gradual evolution of omega_g we find alleviates this. These results have profound implications for theories of galaxy formation.Comment: To appear in MNRAS. Latex file (4 pages of text) plus 3 separate postscript figure files. Requires mn.sty. Postscript version with figures embedded is available at http://www.ociw.edu/~lisa/publications.htm

On the fidelity of the core mass functions derived from dust column density data

Aims: We examine the recoverability and completeness limits of the dense core mass functions (CMFs) derived for a molecular cloud using extinction data and a core identification scheme based on two-dimensional thresholding. Methods: We performed simulations where a population of artificial cores was embedded into the variable background extinction field of the Pipe nebula. We extracted the cores from the simulated extinction maps, constructed the CMFs, and compared them to the input CMFs. The simulations were repeated using a variety of extraction parameters and several core populations with differing input mass functions and differing degrees of crowding. Results: The fidelity of the observed CMF depends on the parameters selected for the core extraction algorithm for our background. More importantly, it depends on how crowded the core population is. We find that the observed CMF recovers the true CMF reliably when the mean separation of cores is larger than their mean diameter (f>1). If this condition holds, the derived CMF is accurate and complete above M > 0.8-1.5 Msun, depending on the parameters used for the core extraction. In the simulations, the best fidelity was achieved with the detection threshold of 1 or 2 times the rms-noise of the extinction data, and with the contour level spacings of 3 times the rms-noise. Choosing larger threshold and wider level spacings increases the limiting mass. The simulations show that when f>1.5, the masses of individual cores are recovered with a typical uncertainty of 25-30 %. When f=1 the uncertainty is ~60 %. In very crowded cases where f<1 the core identification algorithm is unable to recover the masses of the cores adequately. For the cores of the Pipe nebula f~2.0 and therefore the use of the method in that region is justified.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&

HST/ACS weak lensing analysis of the galaxy cluster RDCS 1252.9-2927 at z=1.24

We present a weak lensing analysis of one of the most distant massive galaxy cluster known, RDCS 1252.9-2927 at z=1.24, using deep images from the Advanced Camera for Survey (ACS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). By taking advantage of the depth and of the angular resolution of the ACS images, we detect for the first time at z>1 a clear weak lensing signal in both the i (F775W) and z (F850LP) filters. We measure a 5-\sigma signal in the i band and a 3-\sigma signal in the shallower z band image. The two radial mass profiles are found to be in very good agreement with each other, and provide a measurement of the total mass of the cluster inside a 1Mpc radius of M(<1Mpc) = (8.0 +/- 1.3) x 10^14 M_\odot in the current cosmological concordance model h =0.70, \Omega_m=0.3, \Omega_\Lambda=0.7, assuming a redshift distribution of background galaxies as inferred from the Hubble Deep Fields surveys. A weak lensing signal is detected out to the boundary of our field (3' radius, corresponding to 1.5Mpc at the cluster redshift). We detect a small offset between the centroid of the weak lensing mass map and the brightest cluster galaxy, and we discuss the possible origin of this discrepancy. The cumulative weak lensing radial mass profile is found to be in good agreement with the X-ray mass estimate based on Chandr and XMM-Newton observations, at least out to R_500=0.5Mpc.Comment: 38 pages, ApJ in press. Full resolution images available at http://www.eso.org/~prosati/RDCS1252/Lombardi_etal_accepted.pd

The mid-infrared extinction law in the darkest cores of the Pipe Nebula

Context. The properties of dust grains, in particular their size distribution, are expected to differ from the interstellar medium to the high-density regions within molecular clouds. Aims. We measure the mid-infrared extinction law produced by dense material in molecular cloud cores. Since the extinction at these wavelengths is caused by dust, the extinction law in cores should depart from that found in low-density environments if the dust grains have different properties. Methods. We use the unbiased LINES method to measure the slope of the reddening vectors in color-color diagrams. We derive the mid-infrared extinction law toward the dense cores B59 and FeSt 1-457 in the Pipe Nebula over a range of visual extinction between 10 and 50 magnitudes, using a combination of Spitzer/IRAC, and ESO NTT/VLT data. Results. The mid-infrared extinction law in both cores departs significantly from a power-law between 3.6 and 8 micron, suggesting that these cores contain dust with a considerable fraction of large dust grains. We find no evidence for a dependence of the extinction law with column density up to 50 magnitudes of visual extinction in these cores, and no evidence for a variation between our result and those for other clouds at lower column densities reported elsewhere in the literature. This suggests that either large grains are present even in low column density regions, or that the existing dust models need to be revised at mid-infrared wavelengths. We find a small but significant difference in the extinction law of the two cores, that we tentatively associate with the onset of star formation in B59.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Accepted to A&

The VISTA Orion mini-survey: star formation in the Lynds 1630 North cloud

The Orion cloud complex presents a variety of star formation mechanisms and properties and it is still one of the most intriguing targets for star formation studies. We present VISTA/VIRCAM near-infrared observations of the L1630N star forming region, including the stellar clusters NGC 2068 and NGC 2071, in the Orion molecular cloud B and discuss them in combination with Spitzer data. We select 186 young stellar object (YSO) candidates in the region on the basis of multi-colour criteria, confirm the YSO nature of the majority of them using published spectroscopy from the literature, and use this sample to investigate the overall star formation properties in L1630N. The K-band luminosity function of L1630N is remarkably similar to that of the Trapezium cluster, i.e., it presents a broad peak in the range 0.3-0.7 M$_\odot$ and a fraction of sub-stellar objects of $\sim$20%. The fraction of YSOs still surrounded by disk/envelopes is very high ($\sim$85%) compared to other star forming regions of similar age (1-2 Myr), but includes some uncertain corrections for diskless YSOs. Yet, a possibly high disk fraction together with the fact that 1/3 of the cloud mass has a gas surface density above the threshold for star formation ($\sim$129 M$_\odot$ pc$^{-2}$), points towards a still on-going star formation activity in L1630N. The star formation efficiency (SFE), star formation rate (SFR) and density of star formation of L1630N are within the ranges estimated for galactic star forming regions by the Spitzer "core to disk" and "Gould's Belt" surveys. However, the SFE and SFR are lower than the average value measured in the Orion A cloud and, in particular, lower than that in the southern regions of L1630. This might suggest different star formation mechanisms within the L1630 cloud complex.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure