1 research outputs found
Chandra observations of Cygnus OB2
Cygnus OB2 is the nearest example of a massive star forming region,
containing over 50 O-type stars and hundreds of B-type stars. We have analyzed
two Chandra pointings in Cyg OB2, detecting ~1700 X-ray sources, of which ~1450
are thought to be members of the association. Optical and near-IR photometry
has been obtained for ~90% of these sources from recent deep Galactic plane
surveys. We have performed isochrone fits to the near-IR color-magnitude
diagram, deriving ages of 3.5(+0.75,-1.0) and 5.25(+1.5,-1.0) Myrs for sources
in the two fields, both with considerable spreads around the pre-MS isochrones.
The presence of a second population in the region, somewhat older than the
present-day O-type stars, has been suggested by other authors and fits with the
ages derived here. The fraction of sources with inner circumstellar disks (as
traced by the K-band excess) is found to be very low, but appropriate for a
population of age ~5 Myrs. We measure the stellar mass functions and find a
power-law slope of Gamma = -1.09 +/- 0.13, in good agreement with the global
mean value estimated by Kroupa. A steepening of the mass function at high
masses is observed and we suggest this is due to the presence of the previous
generation of stars that have lost their most massive members. Finally,
combining our mass function and an estimate of the radial density profile of
the association suggests a total mass of Cyg OB2 of ~30,000 Msun, similar to
that of many of our Galaxy's most massive star forming regions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, conference proceedings for JENAM 2010: Star
Clusters in the Era of Large Surveys, Editors: A.Moitinho and J. Alve