Protostellar Luminosity Functions in 11 Diverse Star Forming Environments

Details Protostellar Luminosity Functions in 11 Diverse Star Forming Environments Protostellar Luminosity Functions in 11 Diverse Star Forming Environments

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21932706k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #327.06

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Protostars exist in a variety of environments, ranging from clouds with dispersed low-mass stars, such as Taurus, to clustered regions in clouds forming high-mass stars, like Orion. The effect these different environments have on protostar properties such as mass or luminosity is uncertain. One way to probe the effects of cloud environment on the observable property, protostar luminosity is to compare protostellar luminosity functions of clouds hosting varied populations of protostars. In this dissertation talk I will discuss the protostellar luminosity functions from 11 star forming clouds including Lupus, Chamaeleon, Ophiuchus, Perseus, Serpens, Orion, Cep OB3, Mon R2, Cygnus-X, and Maddalena's Cloud, which encompass a wide range of star forming environments. The luminosity functions are constructed from Spitzer surveys of these molecular clouds. I employ a new technique for estimating the bolometric luminosity from near and mid-IR fluxes alone and for subtracting contamination from galaxies, reddened pre-main sequence stars with disks, and edge-on disk systems. The clouds which are forming massive stars show a significant peak at low luminosity and a tail extending toward luminosities above 10 solar luminosities, while the luminosity functions of clouds which are not forming massive stars have no significant peak down to the sensitivity limit and do not exhibit the tail. I compare these luminosity functions to existing models of protostellar evolution. I also compare the luminosity functions of protostars in distributed and clustered environments, as determined using nearest-neighbor distances. In Orion and Cygnus-X, the clouds which contain the largest populations of protostars there is a clear difference in luminosity functions between protostars incrowded and distributed regions, with the luminosity function biased towards higher luminosities in more luminous regions. I will discuss the implications of these variations and the possibility that the IMF is varying within the star forming regions.

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