Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21541405b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #414.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.254
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) were identified as dark extinction features against the mid-IR ( 5-25 microns) Galactic Plane with the MSX and ISO satellites. Since their discovery in 1997, studies have presented compelling evidence that IRDCs are the cold, dense precursors to stellar clusters, and therefore massive stars. We present a multi-wavelength study which examines the physical properties and evolutionary stages of a sample of 17 clumps within 8 IRDCs. We compare masses measured from the dust continuum, mid-IR extinction, virial line widths, and 13CO emission and find that mid-IR extinction masses and dust continuum masses are complementary mass tracers in IRDCs. We also find that the virial masses are uniformly larger than the dust continuum masses, which may indicate that small, dense cores within the beam or outflows dominate the molecular line width. A study of the molecular gas properties of IRDCs in 13CO, HCO+, and N2H+ is also presented, in which we do not see any evidence of chemical differentiation between "active" clumps (those displaying signs of active star-formation) and "quiescent" clumps (cold dust continuum peaks with no signs of active star-formation). We combine previous work on star-formation tracers in IRDCs with our search for Ultra-Compact (UC)HII regions to suggest an observationally based and physically motivated evolutionary sequence for IRDC clumps, and consequently massive star and cluster formation. We find that "active" clumps are hotter and denser than "quiescent" clumps, which further supports our proposed evolutionary sequence. This work has been supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Bally John
Battersby Cara
Ginsburg Adam
Glenn Jason
Jackson James M.
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