Commentary on interstellar matter associated with 18 open clusters

Information supplementary to that contained in Section 4 of an article entitled, A CO Survey of Regions Around 34 Open Clusters, (Leisawitz, Bash, and Thaddeus) published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Volume 70, Number 4, August 1989 is summarized. The information presented here, which describes the interstellar environments of young clusters and some cluster physical characteristics, comes from observations published in the astronomical literature and the author's carbon monoxide (CO) emission line survey, and may help clarify our understanding of the interaction of massive stars with the interstellar medium

A model for the infrared emission from an OB star cluster environment

Researchers developed an interactive radiative transfer code that predicts the infrared emission from an HII region containing diffuse ionized and atomic gas and dense molecular clouds. This model complements the investigation of the redistribution of OB star luminosity in the interstellar medium (Leisawitz and Hauser 1988, Ap. J., 332, 954). The model can be used as a diagnostic tool to probe the radiation field and matter density in an HII region, place constraints on the proximity and orientation of an illuminated molecular cloud with respect to the ionizing stars, test for the presence of small, transiently heated dust grains, and determine whether the dust-to-gas ratio is normal. Predictions of the model agree qualitatively and quantitatively with observations of blister-type HII regions ionized by well-studied OB clusters in which the distribution of dense neutral material is known. This is illustrated by a model for Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) observations of the region around NGC 7380 (S142). Researchers plan to use the model in a survey of regions of massive star formation in the outer Galaxy to study OB stars embedded to various degrees in their parental molecular clouds

On the redistribution of OB star luminosity and the warming of nearby molecular clouds

Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) observations of the neighborhoods of six outer-Galaxy HII regions were combined with CO observations to show that most of the far infrared (FIR) luminosity from within approximately 25 to 75 pc of the ionizing stars is contributed by dust in molecular clouds, not by dust in the low-density ionized gas. Dust associated with the clouds is warmed by absorption of UV and visible light from the cluster of stars responsible for the ionization. Most of the OB cluster starlight is not absorbed locally. A fraction of the order of 10% of the OB cluster luminosity is absorbed by nearby molecular clouds and reradiated as FIR light. The luminosity per unit mass for the heated clouds is approximately 3 to 13 solar luminosity/solar mass, approximately one order of magnitude greater than the corresponding ratio for clouds found near clusters without O stars, and two orders of magnitude greater than the ratio for dark clouds heated primarily by the interstellar radiation field. If the observations of clouds near outer-Galaxy HII regions are used to characterize the molecular clouds heated by HII regions in the inner-Galaxy, then at most 30% of the Galaxy's molecular cloud mass is actively engaged in the formation of massive stars at the present time

Catalog of open clusters and associated interstellar matter

The Catalog of Open Clusters and Associated Interstellar Matter summarizes observations of 128 open clusters and their associated ionized, atomic, and molecular iinterstellar matter. Cluster sizes, distances, radial velocities, ages, and masses, and the radial velocities and masses of associated interstellar medium components, are given. The database contains information from approximately 400 references published in the scientific literature before 1988

SPECS: the kilometer-baseline far-IR interferometer in NASA's space science roadmap

Ultimately, after the Single Aperture Far-IR (SAFIR) telescope, astrophysicists will need a far-IR observatory that provides angular resolution comparable to that of the Hubble Space Telescope. At such resolution galaxies at high redshift, protostars, and nascent planetary systems will be resolved, and theoretical models for galaxy, star, and planet formation and evolution can be subjected to important observational tests. This paper updates information provided in a 2000 SPIE paper on the scientific motivation and design concepts for interferometric missions SPIRIT (the Space Infrared Interferometric Telescope) and SPECS (the Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of Cosmic Structure). SPECS is a kilometer baseline far-IR/submillimeter imaging and spectral interferometer that depends on formation flying, and SPIRIT is a highly-capable pathfinder interferometer on a boom with a maximum baseline in the 30 - 50 m range. We describe recent community planning activities, remind readers of the scientific rationale for space-based far-infrared imaging interferometry, present updated design concepts for the SPIRIT and SPECS missions, and describe the main issues currently under study. The engineering and technology requirements for SPIRIT and SPECS, additional design details, recent technology developments, and technology roadmaps are given in a companion paper in the Proceedings of the conference on New Frontiers in Stellar Interferometry

The WISE InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates (WIRED) Survey

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a NASA medium class Explorer mission that performed an all sky survey in four infrared bands. We present an overview of the WISE InfraRed Excesses around Degenerates (WIRED) Survey, which has the goals of characterizing white dwarf stars in the WISE bands, confirming objects known to have infrared excess from past observations, and revealing new examples of white dwarfs with infrared excess that can be attributed to unresolved companions or debris disks. We obtained preliminary WISE detections (S/N > 2) in at least one band of 405 white dwarfs from the 9316 unique possible targets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs (not all potential targets were available in the sky coverage used here). A companion paper in this volume discusses specific results from our target detections

The WIRED Survey. IV. New Dust Disks from the McCook & Sion White Dwarf Catalog

We have compiled photometric data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer All Sky Survey and other archival sources for the more than 2200 objects in the original McCook & Sion Catalog of Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs. We applied color-selection criteria to identify 28 targets whose infrared spectral energy distributions depart from the expectation for the white dwarf photosphere alone. Seven of these are previously known white dwarfs with circumstellar dust disks, five are known central stars of planetary nebulae, and six were excluded for being known binaries or having possible contamination of their infrared photometry. We fit white dwarf models to the spectral energy distributions of the remaining ten targets, and find seven new candidates with infrared excess suggesting the presence of a circumstellar dust disk. We compare the model dust disk properties for these new candidates with a comprehensive compilation of previously published parameters for known white dwarfs with dust disks. It is possible that the current census of white dwarfs with dust disks that produce an excess detectable at K-band and shorter wavelengths is close to complete for the entire sample of known WDs to the detection limits of existing near-IR all-sky surveys. The white dwarf dust disk candidates now being found using longer wavelength infrared data are drawn from a previously underrepresented region of parameter space, in which the dust disks are overall cooler, narrower in radial extent, and/or contain fewer emitting grains.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 34 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables; added missing reference in Section 2 (p. 7

The Wide Field Imaging Interferometry Testbed

We are developing a Wide-Field Imaging Interferometry Testbed (WIIT) in support of design studies for NASA's future space interferometry missions, in particular the SPIRIT and SPECS far-infrared/submillimeter interferometers. WIIT operates at optical wavelengths and uses Michelson beam combination to achieve both wide-field imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy. It will be used chiefly to test the feasibility of using a large-format detector array at the image plane of the sky to obtain wide-field interferometry images through mosaicing techniques. In this setup each detector pixel records interferograms corresponding to averaging a particular pointing range on the sky as the optical path length is scanned and as the baseline separation and orientation is varied. The final image is constructed through spatial and spectral Fourier transforms of the recorded interferograms for each pixel, followed by a mosaic/joint-deconvolution procedure of all the pixels. In this manner the image within the pointing range of each detector pixel is further resolved to an angular resolution corresponding to the maximum baseline separation for fringe measurements. We present the motivation for building the testbed, show the optical, mechanical, control, and data system design, and describe the image processing requirements and algorithms. WIIT is presently under construction at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, IEEE Aerospace Conference 200

The Path to Far-IR Interferometry in Space: Recent Developments, Plans, and Prospects

The far-IR astrophysics community is eager to follow up Spitzer and Herschel observations with sensitive, highresolution imaging and spectroscopy, for such measurements are needed to understand merger-driven star formation and chemical enrichment in galaxies, star and planetary system formation, and the development and prevalence of waterbearing planets. The community is united in its support for a space-based interferometry mission. Through concerted efforts worldwide, the key enabling technologies are maturing. Two balloon-borne far-IR interferometers are presently under development. This paper reviews recent technological and programmatic developments, summarizes plans, and offers a vision for space-based far-IR interferometry involving international collaboration

A Classification Scheme for Young Stellar Objects Using the WIDE-FIELD INFRARED SURVEY EXPLORER ALLWISE Catalog: Revealing Low-Density Star Formation in the Outer Galaxy

We present an assessment of the performance of WISE and the AllWISE data release in a section of the Galactic Plane. We lay out an approach to increasing the reliability of point source photometry extracted from the AllWISE catalog in Galactic Plane regions using parameters provided in the catalog. We use the resulting catalog to construct a new, revised young star detection and classification scheme combining WISE and 2MASS near and mid-infrared colors and magnitudes and test it in a section of the Outer Milky Way. The clustering properties of the candidate Class I and II stars using a nearest neighbor density calculation and the two-point correlation function suggest that the majority of stars do form in massive star forming regions, and any isolated mode of star formation is at most a small fraction of the total star forming output of the Galaxy. We also show that the isolated component may be very small and could represent the tail end of a single mechanism of star formation in line with models of molecular cloud collapse with supersonic turbulence and not a separate mode all to itself