Other
Scientific paper
Sep 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009phdt........16k&link_type=abstract
Proquest Dissertations And Theses 2009. Section 0084, Part 0606 188 pages; [Ph.D. dissertation].United States - - Massachusetts
Other
Star Formation, Massive Star-Forming Regions, Infrared Emissions
Scientific paper
Massive star forming regions are an incredibly rich environment in which to perform a host of scientific investigations into the birth and early evolution of stars and planets. This thesis presents an observational study of the massive star forming region W5 with the goal of understanding its history and the properties of the young stars within.
The first part of the thesis presents the W5 region and the results of a deep Spitzer imaging survey. Point source photometry is extracted and the sources classified using an automated routine built to pick out and differentiate young stars having a variety of infrared excess spectral energy distribution (SED) morphologies. We argue that these different types of SEDs correspond to different evolutionary stages in the life of a protostellar disk. Using this as a basis for a simple age determinant, the distribution of these young stars is examined in terms of their clustering properties and the possibility that triggered star formation has played a role in the history of W5. We find evidence for a large population of young stars not associated with any cluster. We also find suggestive evidence for triggering.
The second and third parts deal with the infrared emission produced by some of these young stars. This emission is interpreted as coming from the young stellar disk around each star. In chapter 3 we analyze four unusual tail-like objects near the massive O stars of W5. These are modeled as young stars whose dusty disks are being blasted away by radiation pressure and winds from the O stars. The final chapter looks at the infrared emission properties of the intermediate mass stars in the region. We use a large spectroscopic survey of stars in W5 to show that stars of type A and B have a relatively low disk fraction compared to other similar regions at about the same age. This new result will help us to constrain the evolution of disks around these more massive stars, and the likelihood that planets could form in them.
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