Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aas...20516604r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 205, #166.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1619
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present submillimeter continuum maps at 450 μm and 850 μm of the NGC 7538 and M17 star-forming regions, made using the Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We used an automatic clump-finding algorithm (clfind2d) to identify 60-100 clumps in each image. We devised a technique for combining 450 μm and 850 μm maps to estimate the mean temperature of each clump. Using these temperatures, we compute the mass of each clump and analyse their differential and cumulative mass functions. We find that, as in low-mass star-forming regions, the clump mass function follows a Salpeter-like power-law for clump masses up to ˜ 3000 M&sun;. We compare the results of eight mm and submm continuum studies of the clump mass function in seven star-forming regions across five orders of magnitude in mass and find remarkable agreement among them. We interpret the ubiquity of Salpeter-like mass functions as evidence for the early determination of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), and hence as evidence that turbulent fragmentation is the process responsible for generating the IMF. We conclude that the physical processes responsible for generating the IMF should be scale-free. This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology.
Reid Michael A.
Wilson Christine Diana
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