1,684 research outputs found
High-fidelity view of the structure and fragmentation of the high-mass, filamentary IRDC G11.11-0.12
Star formation in molecular clouds is intimately linked to their internal
mass distribution. We present an unprecedentedly detailed analysis of the
column density structure of a high-mass, filamentary molecular cloud, namely
IRDC G11.11-0.12 (G11). We use two novel column density mapping techniques:
high-resolution (FWHM=2", or ~0.035 pc) dust extinction mapping in near- and
mid-infrared, and dust emission mapping with the Herschel satellite. These two
completely independent techniques yield a strikingly good agreement,
highlighting their complementarity and robustness. We first analyze the dense
gas mass fraction and linear mass density of G11. We show that G11 has a top
heavy mass distribution and has a linear mass density (M_l ~ 600 Msun pc^{-1})
that greatly exceeds the critical value of a self-gravitating, non-turbulent
cylinder. These properties make G11 analogous to the Orion A cloud, despite its
low star-forming activity. This suggests that the amount of dense gas in
molecular clouds is more closely connected to environmental parameters or
global processes than to the star-forming efficiency of the cloud. We then
examine hierarchical fragmentation in G11 over a wide range of size-scales and
densities. We show that at scales 0.5 pc > l > 8 pc, the fragmentation of G11
is in agreement with that of a self-gravitating cylinder. At scales smaller
than l < 0.5 pc, the results agree better with spherical Jeans' fragmentation.
One possible explanation for the change in fragmentation characteristics is the
size-scale-dependent collapse time-scale that results from the finite size of
real molecular clouds: at scales l < 0.5 pc, fragmentation becomes sufficiently
rapid to be unaffected by global instabilities.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted to A&
Evidence that widespread star formation may be underway in G0.253+016, "The Brick"
Image cubes of differential column density as a function of dust temperature
are constructed for Galactic Centre molecular cloud G0.253+0.016 ("The Brick")
using the recently described PPMAP procedure. The input data consist of
continuum images from the Herschel Space Telescope in the wavelength range
70-500 m, supplemented by previously published interferometric data at 1.3
mm wavelength. While the bulk of the dust in the molecular cloud is consistent
with being heated externally by the local interstellar radiation field, our
image cube shows the presence, near one edge of the cloud, of a filamentary
structure whose temperature profile suggests internal heating. The structure
appears as a cool ( K) tadpole-like feature, pc in length, in
which is embedded a thin spine of much hotter ( 40-50 K) material. We
interpret these findings in terms of a cool filament whose hot central region
is undergoing gravitational collapse and fragmentation to form a line of
protostars. If confirmed, this would represent the first evidence of widespread
star formation having started within this cloud.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
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Kinetics governing phase separation of nanostructured Sn_xGe_(1–x) alloys
We have studied the dynamic phenomenon of Sn_xGe_(1–x)/Ge phase separation during deposition by molecular beam epitaxy on Ge(001) substrates. Phase separation leads to the formation of direct band gap semiconductor nanowire arrays embedded in Ge oriented along the [001] growth direction. The effect of strain and composition on the periodicity were decoupled by growth on Ge(001) and partially relaxed Si_yGe_(1–y)/Ge(001) virtual substrates. The experimental results are compared with three linear instability models of strained film growth and find good agreement with only one of the models for phase separation during dynamic growth
On the temperature structure of the Galactic Centre cloud G0.253+0.016
We present a series of smoothed particle hydrodynamical models of
G0.253+0.016 (also known as 'The Brick'), a very dense molecular cloud that
lies close to the Galactic Centre. We explore how its gas and dust temperatures
react as we vary the strength of both the interstellar radiation field (ISRF)
and the cosmic ray ionisation rate (CRIR). As the physical extent of
G0.253+0.016 along our line-of-sight is unknown, we consider two possibilities:
one in which the longest axis is that measured in the plane of the sky (9.4 pc
in length), and one in which it is along the line of sight, in which case we
take it to be 17 pc. To recover the observed gas and dust temperatures, we find
find that the ISRF must be around 1000 times the solar neighbourhood value, and
the CRIR must be roughly 1E-14 /s, regardless of the geometries studied. For
such high values of the CRIR, we find that cooling in the cloud's interior is
dominated by neutral oxygen, in contrast to standard molecular clouds, which at
the same densities are mainly cooled via CO. Our results suggest that the
conditions near G0.253+0.016 are more extreme than those generally accepted for
the inner 500 pc of the galaxy.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Hierarchical fragmentation and collapse signatures in a high-mass starless region
Aims: Understanding the fragmentation and collapse properties of the dense
gas during the onset of high-mass star formation. Methods: We observed the
massive (~800M_sun) starless gas clump IRDC18310-4 with the Plateau de Bure
Interferometer (PdBI) at sub-arcsecond resolution in the 1.07mm continuum
andN2H+(3-2) line emission. Results: Zooming from a single-dish low-resolution
map to previous 3mm PdBI data, and now the new 1.07mm continuum observations,
the sub-structures hierarchically fragment on the increasingly smaller spatial
scales. While the fragment separations may still be roughly consistent with
pure thermal Jeans fragmentation, the derived core masses are almost two orders
of magnitude larger than the typical Jeans mass at the given densities and
temperatures. However, the data can be reconciled with models using
non-homogeneous initial density structures, turbulence and/or magnetic fields.
While most sub-cores remain (far-)infrared dark even at 70mum, we identify weak
70mum emission toward one core with a comparably low luminosity of ~16L_sun,
re-enforcing the general youth of the region. The spectral line data always
exhibit multiple spectral components toward each core with comparably small
line widths for the individual components (in the 0.3 to 1.0km/s regime). Based
on single-dish C18O(2-1) data we estimate a low virial-to-gas-mass ratio
<=0.25. We discuss that the likely origin of these spectral properties may be
the global collapse of the original gas clump that results in multiple spectral
components along each line of sight. Even within this dynamic picture the
individual collapsing gas cores appear to have very low levels of internal
turbulence.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, A&A in pres
Kinematic and Thermal Structure at the onset of high-mass star formation
We want to understand the kinematic and thermal properties of young massive
gas clumps prior to and at the earliest evolutionary stages of high-mass star
formation. Do we find signatures of gravitational collapse? Do we find
temperature gradients in the vicinity or absence of infrared emission sources?
Do we find coherent velocity structures toward the center of the dense and cold
gas clumps? To determine kinematics and gas temperatures, we used ammonia,
because it is known to be a good tracer and thermometer of dense gas. We
observed the NH(1,1) and (2,2) lines within seven very young high-mass
star-forming regions with the VLA and the Effelsberg 100m telescope. This
allows us to study velocity structures, linewidths, and gas temperatures at
high spatial resolution of 3-5, corresponding to 0.05 pc. We find on
average cold gas clumps with temperatures in the range between 10 K and 30 K.
The observations do not reveal a clear correlation between infrared emission
peaks and ammonia temperature peaks. We report an upper limit for the linewidth
of 1.3 km s, at the spectral resolution limit of our VLA
observation. This indicates a relatively low level of turbulence on the scale
of the observations. Velocity gradients are present in almost all regions with
typical velocity differences of 1 to 2 km s and gradients of 5 to 10 km
s pc. These velocity gradients are smooth in most cases, but
there is one exceptional source (ISOSS23053), for which we find several
velocity components with a steep velocity gradient toward the clump centers
that is larger than 30 km s pc. This steep velocity gradient is
consistent with recent models of cloud collapse. Furthermore, we report a
spatial correlation of ammonia and cold dust, but we also find decreasing
ammonia emission close to infrared emission sources.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure
Carbon in different phases ([CII], [CI], and CO) in infrared dark clouds: Cloud formation signatures and carbon gas fractions
Context: How do molecular clouds form out of the atomic phase? And what are
the relative fractions of carbon in the ionized, atomic and molecular phase?
These are questions at the heart of cloud and star formation. Methods: Using
multiple observatories from Herschel and SOFIA to APEX and the IRAM 30m
telescope, we mapped the ionized, atomic and molecular carbon ([CII]@1900GHz,
[CI]@492GHz and C18O(2-1)@220GHz) at high spatial resolution (12"-25") in four
young massive infrared dark clouds (IRDCs). Results: The three carbon phases
were successfully mapped in all four regions, only in one source the [CII] line
remained a non-detection. Both the molecular and atomic phases trace the dense
structures well, with [CI] also tracing material at lower column densities.
[CII] exhibits diverse morphologies in our sample, from compact to diffuse
structures probing the cloud environment. In at least two out of the four
regions, we find kinematic signatures strongly indicating that the dense gas
filaments have formed out of a dynamically active and turbulent
atomic/molecular cloud, potentially from converging gas flows. The
atomic-to-molecular carbon gas mass ratios are low between 7% and 12% with the
lowest values found toward the most quiescent region. In the three regions
where [CII] is detected, its mass is always higher by a factor of a few than
that of the atomic carbon. The ionized carbon emission depends as well on the
radiation field, however, we also find strong [CII] emission in a region
without significant external sources, indicating that other processes, e.g.,
energetic gas flows can contribute to the [CII] excitation as well.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics, a higher
resolution version can be found at
http://www.mpia.de/homes/beuther/papers.htm
The prevalence of star formation as a function of Galactocentric radius
We present large-scale trends in the distribution of star-forming objects revealed by the Hi-GAL survey. As a simple metric probing the prevalence of star formation in Hi-GAL sources, we define the fraction of the total number of Hi-GAL sources with a 70 μm counterpart as the ‘star-forming fraction’ or SFF. The mean SFF in the inner galactic disc (3.1 kpc < RGC < 8.6 kpc) is 25 per cent. Despite an apparent pile-up of source numbers at radii associated with spiral arms, the SFF shows no significant deviations at these radii, indicating that the arms do not affect the star-forming productivity of dense clumps either via physical triggering processes or through the statistical effects of larger source samples associated with the arms. Within this range of Galactocentric radii, we find that the SFF declines with RGC at a rate of −0.026 ±0.002 per kiloparsec, despite the dense gas mass fraction having been observed to be constant in the inner Galaxy. This suggests that the SFF may be weakly dependent on one or more large-scale physical properties of the Galaxy, such as metallicity, radiation field, pressure or shear, such that the dense sub-structures of molecular clouds acquire some internal properties inherited from their environment
Molecular Line Observations of Infrared Dark Clouds: Seeking the Precursors to Intermediate and Massive Star Formation
We have identified 41 infrared dark clouds from the 8 micron maps of the
Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX), selected to be found within one square degree
areas centered on known ultracompact HII regions. We have mapped these infrared
dark clouds in N2H+(1-0), CS(2-1) and C18O(1-0) emission using the Five College
Radio Astronomy Observatory. The maps of the different species often show
striking differences in morphologies, indicating differences in evolutionary
state and/or the presence of undetected, deeply embedded protostars. We derive
an average mass for these clouds using N2H+ column densities of ~2500 solar
masses, a value comparable to that found in previous studies of high mass star
forming cores using other mass tracers. The linewidths of these clouds are
typically ~2.0 - 2.9 km/s. Based on the fact that they are dark at 8 micron,
compact, massive, and have large velocity dispersions, we suggest that these
clouds may be the precursor sites of intermediate and high mass star formation.Comment: Accepted to ApJS, 22 pages, 10 pages of figures. For full-resolution
images, see http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~seragan/pubs/fcrao/figures.tar.g
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