We performed a multi-wavelength observation toward LkHa 101 embedded cluster and its adjacent 85arcmin*60arcmin region. The LkHa 101 embedded cluster is the first and only one significant cluster in California molecular cloud (CMC). These observations have revealed that the LkHa 101 embedded cluster is just located at the projected intersectional region of two filaments. One filament is the highest-density section of the CMC, the other is a new identified filament with a low-density gas emission. Toward the projected intersection, we find the bridging features connecting the two filaments in velocity, and identify a V-shape gas structure. These agree with the scenario that the two filaments are colliding with each other. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), we measured that the RRL velocity of the LkHa 101 H II region is 0.5 km/s, which is related to the velocity component of the CMC filament. Moreover, there are some YSOs distributed outside the intersectional region. We suggest that the cloud-cloud collision together with the fragmentation of the main filament may play an important role in the YSOs formation of the cluster.
The new Gaia data release (EDR3) with improved astrometry has opened a new era in studying our Milky Way in fine detail. We use Gaia EDR3 astrometry together with 2MASS and WISE photometry to study two of the most massive molecular clouds in the solar vicinity: Orion A and California. Despite having remarkable similarities in the plane of the sky in terms of shape, size, and extinction, California has an order of magnitude lower star formation efficiency. We use our state-of-the-art dust mapping technique to derive the detailed three-dimensional (3D) structure of the two clouds, taking into ac…
Aims. The process of gravitational fragmentation in the L1482 molecular filament of the California molecular cloud is studied by combining several complementary observations and physical estimates. We investigate the kinematic and dynamical states of this molecular filament and physical properties of several dozens of dense molecular clumps embedded therein. Methods. We present and compare molecular line emission observations of the J=2--1 and J=3--2 transitions of 12CO in this molecular complex, using the KOSMA 3-meter telescope. These observations are complemented with archival data observat…
Dense molecular filaments are central to the star formation process, but the detailed manner in which they fragment into prestellar cores is not yet well understood. Here, we investigate the fragmentation properties and dynamical state of several star-forming filaments in the X-shape Nebula region of the California MC, in an effort to shed some light on this issue. We used multi-wavelength far-infrared images from Herschel and the getsources and getfilaments extraction methods to identify dense cores and filaments and derive their basic properties. We also used a map of $\rm ^{13}CO (2-1)$ emi…
We study the relationship between molecular gas and dust in the California Molecular Cloud over an unprecedented dynamic range of cloud depth (Av = 3 - 60 magnitudes). We compare deep Herschel-based measurements of dust extinction with observations of the 12CO, 13CO, and C18O J=2-1 lines on sub-parsec scales across the cloud. We directly measure the ratio of CO integrated intensity to dust extinction to derive the CO X-factor at over 1e5 independent locations in the cloud. Confirming an earlier study, we find that no single 12CO X-factor can characterize the molecular gas in the cold ( Tdust<2…
We present observations of the Auriga-California Molecular Cloud (AMC) at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8.0, 24, 70 and 160 micron observed with the IRAC and MIPS detectors as part of the Spitzer Gould Belt Legacy Survey. The total mapped areas are 2.5 sq-deg with IRAC and 10.47 sq-deg with MIPS. This giant molecular cloud is one of two in the nearby Gould Belt of star-forming regions, the other being the Orion A Molecular Cloud (OMC). We compare source counts, colors and magnitudes in our observed region to a subset of the SWIRE data that was processed through our pipeline. Using color-magnitude and color-c…
We have mapped the Auriga/California molecular cloud with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE cameras and the Bolocam 1.1 mm camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) with the eventual goal of quantifying the star formation and cloud structure in this Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) that is comparable in size and mass to the Orion GMC, but which appears to be forming far fewer stars. We have tabulated 60 compact 70/160um sources that are likely pre-main-sequence objects and correlated those with Spitzer and WISE mid-IR sources. At 1.1 mm we find 18 cold, compact sources and discuss their prope…
We present new high resolution and dynamic range dust column density and temperature maps of the California Molecular Cloud derived from a combination of Planck and Herschel dust-emission maps, and 2MASS NIR dust-extinction maps. We used these data to determine the ratio of the 2.2 micron extinction coefficient to the 850 micron opacity and found the value to be close to that found in similar studies of the Orion B and Perseus clouds but higher than that characterizing the Orion A cloud, indicating that variations in the fundamental optical properties of dust may exist between local clouds. We…
We aim to reveal the physical properties and chemical composition of the cores in the California molecular cloud (CMC), so as to better understand the initial conditions of star formation. We made a high-resolution column density map (18.2") with Herschel data, and extracted a complete sample of the cores in the CMC with the \textsl{fellwalker} algorithm. We performed new single-pointing observations of molecular lines near 90 GHz with the IRAM 30m telescope along the main filament of the CMC. In addition, we also performed a numerical modeling of chemical evolution for the cores under the phy…
"TRAO FUNS" is a project to survey Gould Belt's clouds in molecular lines. This paper presents its first results on the central region of the California molecular cloud, L1478. We performed On-The-Fly mapping observations using the Taedeok Radio Astronomy Observatory (TRAO) 14m single dish telescope equipped with a 16 multi-beam array covering $\sim$1.0 square degree area of this region using C$^{18}$O (1-0) mainly tracing low density cloud and about 460 square arcminute area using N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ (1-0) mainly tracing dense cores. CS (2-1) and SO $(3_{2}-2_{1})$ were also used simultaneously to…
We present an analysis of wide-field infrared extinction maps of a region in Perseus just north of the Taurus-Auriga dark cloud complex. From this analysis we have identified a massive, nearby, but previously unrecognized, giant molecular cloud (GMC). From comparison of foreground star counts with Galactic models we derive a distance of 450 +/- 23 parsecs to the cloud. At this distance the cloud extends over roughly 80 pc and has a mass of approximately 10^5 solar masses, rivaling the Orion (A) Molecular Cloud as the largest and most massive GMC in the solar neighborhood. Although surprisingly…
We analyze the gas mass distribution, the gas kinematics, and the young stellar object (YSO) content of the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) L1482 filament. We derive a Gaia DR2 YSO distance of 511$^{+17}_{-16}$ pc. We derive scale-free power-laws for the mean gas line-mass (M/L) profiles; we calculate the gravitational potential and field profiles consistent with these. We present IRAM 30 m C$^{18}$O (1-0) (and other tracers) position-velocity (PV) diagrams that exhibit complex velocity twisting and turning structures. We find a rotational profile in C$^{18}$O perpendicular to the southern fi…
A deep, wide-field, near-infrared imaging survey was used to construct an extinction map of the southeastern part of the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) with $\sim$ 0.5 arc min resolution. The same region was also surveyed in the $^{12}$CO(2-1), $^{13}$CO(2-1), C$^{18}$O(2-1) emission lines at the same angular resolution. Strong spatial variations in the abundances of $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O were found to be correlated with variations in gas temperature, consistent with temperature dependent CO depletion/desorption on dust grains. The $^{13}$CO to C$^{18}$O abundance ratio was found to increa…
In previous contributions, we have presented an analytical model describing the evolution of molecular clouds (MCs) undergoing hierarchical gravitational contraction. The cloud's evolution is characterized by an initial increase in its mass, density, and star formation rate (SFR) and efficiency (SFE) as it contracts, followed by a decrease of these quantities as newly formed massive stars begin to disrupt the cloud. The main parameter of the model is the maximum mass reached by the cloud during its evolution. Thus, specifying the instantaneous mass and some other variable completely determines…
We present 850 and 450 micron observations of the dense regions within the Auriga-California molecular cloud using SCUBA-2 as part of the JCMT Gould Belt Legacy Survey to identify candidate protostellar objects, measure the masses of their circumstellar material (disk and envelope), and compare the star formation to that in the Orion A molecular cloud. We identify 59 candidate protostars based on the presence of compact submillimeter emission, complementing these observations with existing Herschel/SPIRE maps. Of our candidate protostars, 24 are associated with young stellar objects (YSOs) in …
We present initial results of the first large scale survey of embedded star clusters in molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using near-infrared (NIR) imaging from the VISTA Magellanic Clouds Survey (Cioni et al. 2011). We have explored a ~1.65 square degree area of the LMC, which contains the well-known star-forming region 30 Doradus as well as ~14 percent of the galaxy's CO clouds (Wong et al. 2011), and have identified 67 embedded cluster candidates, 45 of which are newly discovered as clusters. We have determined sizes, luminosities and masses for these embedded clusters, e…
Knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of Galactic molecular clouds is important for understanding how clouds are affected by processes such as turbulence and magnetic fields and how this structure effects star formation within them. Great progress has been made in this field with the arrival of the Gaia mission, which provides accurate distances to $\sim10^{9}$ stars. Combining these distances with extinctions inferred from optical-IR, we recover the three-dimensional structure of 16 Galactic molecular cloud complexes at $\sim1$pc resolution using our novel three-dimensional dust mappin…
We present the survey of $^{12}$CO/$^{13}$CO/C$^{18}$O (J=1-0) toward the California Molecular Cloud (CMC) within the region of 161.75$^{\circ} \leqslant l \leqslant$ 167.75$^{\circ}$,-9.5$^{\circ} \leqslant b \leqslant $-7.5$^{\circ}$, using the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) 13.7 m millimeter telescope. Adopting a distance of 470 pc, the mass of the observed molecular cloud estimated from $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O is about 2.59$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, 0.85$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, and 0.09$\times$10$^{4}$ M$_\odot$, respectively. A large-scale continuous filament extending …
Magnetic fields pervade in the interstellar medium (ISM) and are believed to be important in the process of star formation, yet probing magnetic fields in star formation regions is challenging. We propose a new method to use Faraday rotation measurements in small scale star forming regions to find the direction and magnitude of the component of magnetic field along the line-of-sight. We test the proposed method in four relatively nearby regions of Orion A, Orion B, Perseus, and California. We use rotation measure data from the literature. We adopt a simple approach based on relative measuremen…
The past decade has seen an increase of star formation studies made at the molecular cloud scale, motivated mostly by the deployment of a wealth of sensitive infrared telescopes and instruments. Embedded clusters, long recognised as the basic units of coherent star formation in molecular clouds, are now seen to inhabit preferentially cluster complexes tens of parsecs across. This chapter gives an overview of some important properties of the embedded clusters in these complexes and of the complexes themselves, along with the implications of viewing star formation as a molecular-cloud scale proc…
We report the discovery of a population of deeply embedded protostellar candidates in the 20 km s$^{-1}$ cloud, one of the massive molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way, using interferometric submillimeter continuum and H$_2$O maser observations. The submillimeter continuum emission shows five 1-pc scale clumps, each of which further fragments into several 0.1-pc scale cores. We identify 17 dense cores, among which 12 are gravitationally bound. Among the 18 H$_2$O masers detected, 13 coincide with the cores and probably trace outflows emanating from the protosta…
We have extended the membership and determined the 3-D structure of the large (0.19 pc) HH~269 sequence of shocks in the Orion Nebula. All of the components lie along a track that is highly tilted to the plane-of-the-sky and emerge from within the Orion-S embedded molecular cloud. Their source is probably either the highly obscured mm 9 source associated with a high N2H+ density core (more likely) or the more distant star COUP 632 (less likely). The former must be located in the Photon Dominated Region (PDR) underlying the ionized surface of the Orion South Cloud, while the latter would be emb…
Class I protostars are thought to represent an early stage in the lifetime of protoplanetary disks, when they are still embedded in their natal envelope. Here we measure the disk masses of 10 Class I protostars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud to constrain the initial mass budget for forming planets in disks. We use radiative transfer modeling to produce synthetic protostar observations and fit the models to a multi-wavelength dataset using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting procedure. We fit these models simultaneously to our new CARMA 1.3 mm observations that are sensitive to the wide range of …
Given the rarity of young O star candidates, compact HII regions embedded in dense molecular cores continue to serve as potential sites to peer into the details of high-mass star formation. To uncover the ionizing sources of the most luminous and compact HII regions embedded in the RCW106 and RCW122 giant molecular clouds, known to be relatively nearby (2-4 kpc) and isolated, thus providing an opportunity to examine spatial scales of a few hundred to a thousand AU in size. High spatial resolution (0.3"), mid-infrared spectra (R=350), including the fine structure lines [ArIII] and [NeII], were …
The mass function of molecular clouds and clumps is shallower than the mass function of young star clusters, gas-embedded and gas-free alike, as their respective mass function indices are $β_0 \simeq 1.7$ and $β_\star \simeq 2$. We demonstrate that such a difference can arise from different mass-radius relations for the embedded-clusters and the molecular clouds (clumps) hosting them. In particular, the formation of star clusters with a constant mean {\it volume} density in the central regions of molecular clouds of constant mean {\it surface} density steepens the mass function from clouds to …
We have extended the work of Papers I and II of this series to determine at higher spatial resolution the properties of the embedded Orion-S Molecular Cloud that lies within the ionized cavity of the Orion Nebula and of the thin ionized layer that lies between the Cloud and the observer. This was done using existing and new [NII](658.3 nm) and [OIII] (500.7 nm) spectra that map the central region of the Orion Nebula (the Huygens Region). However, it remains unclear how the surface brightness of the ionized layer on the Orion-S Molecular Cloud and that of a foreground Nearer Ionized Layer are l…
The Timescales of Embedded Star Formation as Observed in STARFORGE
University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute（平研究所计算天体物理中心）；Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校天文学系）；Space Telescope Science Institute（太空望远镜科学研究所）；Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University（西北大学交叉天体物理探索与研究中心及物理与天文系）；Department of Physics, University of Alberta（阿尔伯塔大学物理系）；National Radio Astronomy Observatory（国家射电天文台）；Max-Planc（马克斯·普朗克）
We simulate the collapse of a turbulent gas cloud with the particle-based code Gadget2. We choose two sub-clouds, formed by those particles located around the centers $\vec{r}_L$ and $\vec{r}_R$ and within the radii $r_L$ and $r_R$, respectively. A translational velocity $\vec{v}_L$ or $\vec{v}_R$ is added, so that the sub-clouds move towards each other to collide. The radius and pre-collision velocity of the sub-clouds are chosen to be un-equal, and both head-on and oblique collisions are considered. The simulations are all calibrated to have the same total mass and the initial energy ratio $…
Context. The Vela Molecular Ridge hosts a number of young embedded star clusters in the same evolutionary stage. Aims. The main aim of the present work is testing whether the fraction of members with a circumstellar disk in a sample of clusters in the cloud D of the Vela Molecular Ridge, is consistent with relations derived for larger samples of star clusters with an age spread. Besides, we want to constrain the age of the young embedded star clusters associated with cloud D. Methods. We carried out L (3.78 microns) photometry on images of six young embedded star clusters associated with cloud…
The aim of this study is to understand the chemical conditions of ices around embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) in the metal-poor Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We performed near-infrared (2.5-5 micron) spectroscopic observations toward 12 massive embedded YSOs and their candidates in the LMC using the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard AKARI. We estimated the column densities of the H2O, CO2, and CO ices based on their 3.05, 4.27, and 4.67 micron absorption features, and we investigated the correlation between ice abundances and physical properties of YSOs.The ice absorption features of H2O, CO…
We present spectroscopic observations of a sample of 15 embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). These observations were obtained with the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) as part of the SAGE-Spec Legacy program. We analyze the two prominent ice bands in the IRS spectral range: the bending mode of CO_2 ice at 15.2 micron and the ice band between 5 and 7 micron that includes contributions from the bending mode of water ice at 6 micron amongst other ice species. The 5-7 micron band is difficult to identify in our LMC sample due to the conspicuous presence of …
The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), usually referring to the inner 500 pc of the Galaxy, contains a dozen of massive ($\sim10^5$ $M_\odot$) molecular clouds. Are these clouds going to actively form stars like Sgr B2? How are they affected by the extreme physical conditions in the CMZ, such as strong turbulence? Here we present a first step towards answering these questions. Using high-sensitivity, high angular resolution radio and (sub)millimeter observations, we studied deeply embedded star formation in six massive clouds in the CMZ, including the 20 and 50 km s$^{-1}$ clouds, Sgr B1 off (as kn…
Massive stars are rarely seen to form in isolation. It has been proposed that association with companions or clusters in the formative stages is vital to their mass accumulation. In this paper we study IRAS~18144-1723, a massive young stellar object (YSO) which had been perceived in early studies as a single source. In the CO(3-2) line, we detect an outflow aligned well with the outflow seen in H$_2$ in this region. We show that there are at least two YSOs here, and that the outflow is most likely to be from a deeply embedded source detected in our infrared imaging. Using multi-wavelength obse…
We review the use of young low mass stars and protostars, or young stellar objects (YSOs), as tracers of star formation. Observations of molecular clouds at visible, infrared, radio and X-ray wavelengths can identify and characterize the YSOs populating these clouds, with the ability to detect deeply embedded objects and all evolutionary stages. Surveys with the Spitzer, Herschel, XMM-Newton and Chandra space telescopes have measured the spatial distribution of YSOs within a number of nearby (< 2.5 kpc) molecular clouds, showing surface densities varying by more than three orders of magnitude.…
We observed the Sh 2-233IR (S233IR) region with better sensitivity in near-infrared than previous studies for this region. By applying statistical subtraction of the back- ground stars, we identified member sources and derived the age and mass of three distinguishable sub-groups in this region: Sh 2-233IR NE, Sh 2-233IR SW, and the "distributed stars" over the whole cloud. Star formation may be occurring sequentially with a relatively small age difference (\sim 0.2-0.3 Myrs) between subclusters. We found that the slopes for initial mass function (Gamma \sim -0.5) of two subclusters are flatter…
We present a study of narrow filaments toward a massive infrared dark cloud, NGC 6334S, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Thirteen gas filaments are identified using the H$^{13}$CO$^{+}$ line, while a single continuum filament is revealed by the continuum emission. The filaments present a compact radial distribution with a median filament width of $\sim$0.04 pc narrower than the previously proposed `quasi-universal' 0.1~pc filament width. The higher spatial resolution observations and higher-density gas tracer tend to identify even narrower and lower mass filaments…
We construct a semi-analytic model to study the effect of far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation on gas chemistry from embedded protostars. We use the Protostellar Luminosity Function (PLF) formalism of Offner & McKee (2011) to calculate the total, FUV, and ionizing cluster luminosity for various protostellar accretion histories and cluster sizes. We compare the model predictions with surveys of Gould Belt star-forming regions and find the Tapered Turbulent Core model matches best the mean luminosities and the spread in the data. We combine the cluster model with the photo-dissociation region astroch…
(Abridged) We derive an analytical formula which provides estimates on multiscale gravitational energy distribution using the observed surface density PDF. Our analytical formalism also enables one to convert the observed column density PDF into an estimated volume density PDF, and to obtain average radial density profile $ρ(r)$. For a region with $N_{\rm col} \sim N^{-γ_{\rm N}}$, the gravitational energy spectra is $E_{\rm p}(k)\sim k^{-4(1 - 1/γ_{\rm N})}$. We apply the formula to observations of molecular clouds, and find that a scaling index of $-2$ of the surface density PDF implies that…
Feedback from massive stars plays a key role in molecular cloud evolution. After the onset of star formation, the young stellar population is exposed by photoionization, winds, supernovae, and radiation pressure from massive stars. Recent observations of nearby galaxies have provided the evolutionary timeline between molecular clouds and exposed young stars, but the duration of the embedded phase of massive star formation is still ill-constrained. We measure how long massive stellar populations remain embedded within their natal cloud, by applying a statistical method to six nearby galaxies at…
Distance measurements to molecular clouds are important, but are often made separately for each cloud of interest, employing very different different data and techniques. We present a large, homogeneous catalog of distances to molecular clouds, most of which are of unprecedented accuracy. We determine distances using optical photometry of stars along lines of sight toward these clouds, obtained from PanSTARRS-1. We simultaneously infer the reddenings and distances to these stars, tracking the full probability distribution function using a technique presented in Green et al. (2014). We fit thes…
Gravity plays a determining role in the evolution of the molecular ISM. In \citet{2016arXiv160304342L}, we proposed a measure called gravitational energy spectrum to quantify the importance of gravity on multiple physical scales. In this work, using a wavelet-based decomposition technique, we derive the gravitational energy spectra of the Orion A and the Orion B molecular cloud from observational data. The gravitational energy spectra exhibit power-law-like behaviours. From a few pc down to $\sim 0.1 $ pc scale, the Orion A and Orion B molecular cloud have $E_{\rm p}(k)\sim k^{-1.88}$ and $E_{…
HH 175 is an isolated Herbig-Haro object seen towards the B35 cloud in the lambda Ori region. We use deep Subaru 8m interference filter images and Spitzer images to show that HH 175 is a terminal shock in a large collimated outflow from the nearby embedded source IRAS 05417+0907. The body of the eastern outflow lobe is hidden by a dense ridge of gas. The western outflow breaks out of the front of the cometary-shaped B35 cloud, carrying cloud fragments along, which are optically visible due to photoionization by the massive lambda Ori stars. The total extent of the bipolar outflow is 13.7 arcmi…
We discuss a theoretical model for the early evolution of massive star clusters and confront it with the ALMA, radio and infrared observations of the young stellar cluster highly obscured by the molecular cloud D1 in the nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxy NGC 5253. We show that a large turbulent pressure in the central zones of D1 cluster may cause individual wind-blown bubbles to reach pressure confinement before encountering their neighbors. In this case stellar winds are added to the hot shocked wind pockets of gas around individual massive stars that leads them to meet and produce a cluster wi…
To shed light on the time evolution of local star formation episodes in M33, we study the association between 566 Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), identified through the CO (J=2-1) IRAM-all-disk survey, and 630 Young Stellar Cluster Candidates (YSCCs), selected via Spitzer-24~$μ$m emission. The spatial correlation between YSCCs and GMCs is extremely strong, with a typical separation of 17~pc, less than half the CO(2--1) beamsize, illustrating the remarkable physical link between the two populations. GMCs and YSCCs follow the HI filaments, except in the outermost regions where the survey finds fe…
We have conducted ALMA CO isotopes and 1.3 mm continuum observations toward filamentary molecular clouds of the N159W-South region in the Large Magellanic Cloud with an angular resolution of $\sim$0"25 ($\sim$0.07 pc). Although the previous lower-resolution ($\sim$1") ALMA observations revealed that there is a high-mass protostellar object at an intersection of two line-shaped filaments in $^{13}$CO with the length scale of $\sim$10 pc, the spatially resolved observations, in particular, toward the highest column density part traced by the 1.3 mm continuum emission, the N159W-South clump, show…
Stars are usually formed in clusters in the dense cores of molecular clouds. These embedded clusters show a wide variety of morphologies from hierarchical clusters with substructure to centrally condensed ones. Often they are elongated and surrounded by a low-density stellar halo. The structure of an embedded cluster, i.e. the spatial distribution of its members, seems to be linked to the complex structure of the parental molecular cloud and holds important clues about the formation mechanism and the initial conditions, as well as about the subsequent evolution of the cluster.
To unravel the star formation process, we present a multi-scale and multi-wavelength study of the filamentary infrared dark cloud (IRDC) G333.73+0.37, which hosts previously known two HII regions located at its center. Each HII region is associated with a mid-infrared source, and is excited by a massive OB star. Two filamentary structures and a hub-filament system (HFS) associated with one HII region are investigated in absorption using the Spitzer 8.0 $μ$m image. The $^{13}$CO(J = 2-1) and C$^{18}$O(J = 2-1) line data reveal two velocity components (around $-$35.5 and $-$33.5 km s$^{-1}$) tow…
We use N-body simulations to survey the response of embedded star clusters to the dispersal of their parent molecular cloud. The final stages of the clusters can be divided into three classes: the cluster (i) is destroyed, (ii) has a loose structure, and (iii) has a compact core. We are interested in three of the governing parameters of the parent cloud: (i) the mass, (ii) the size, and (iii) the dispersing rate. It is known that the final stage of the cluster is well correlated with the star formation efficiency (SFE) for systems with the same cluster and cloud profile. We deem that the SFE a…
We carried out new $^{12}$CO($J$ = 1-0, 3-2) observations of a N63A supernova remnant (SNR) from the LMC using ALMA and ASTE. We find three giant molecular clouds toward the northeast, east, and near the center of the SNR. Using the ALMA data, we spatially resolved clumpy molecular clouds embedded within the optical nebulae in both the shock-ionized and photoionized lobes discovered by previous H$α$ and [S II] observations. The total mass of the molecular clouds is $\sim$$800$ $M_{\odot}$ for the shock-ionized region and $\sim$$1700$ $M_{\odot}$ for the photoionized region. Spatially resolved …
The nature of Cloud-9: a compact core embedded in a diffuse envelope
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Guizhou University（贵州大学）
We perform a comparative numerical hydrodynamics study of embedded protostellar disks formed as a result of the gravitational collapse of cloud cores of distinct mass (M_cl=0.2--1.7 M_sun) and ratio of rotational to gravitational energy (β=0.0028--0.023). An increase in M_cl and/or βleads to the formation of protostellar disks that are more susceptible to gravitational instability. Disk fragmentation occurs in most models but its effect is often limited to the very early stage, with the fragments being either dispersed or driven onto the forming star during tens of orbital periods. Only cloud …
The abundance of H2 in molecular clouds, relative to the commonly used tracer CO, has only been measured toward a few embedded stars, which may be surrounded by atypical gas. We present observations of near-infrared absorption by H2, CO, and dust toward stars behind molecular clouds, providing a representative sample of these molecules in cold molecular gas, primarily in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. We find N_H2/A_V ~ 1.0x10^21 cm^-2, N_CO/A_V ~ 1.5x10^17 cm^-2 (1.8x10^17 including solid CO), and N_H2/N_CO ~ 6000. The measured N_H2/N_CO ratio is consistent with that toward embedded stars in var…
We present a study of the compact blister HII region BFS 10 and its highly filamentary molecular cloud. We utilize 12CO observations from the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory to determine the distance, size, mass, and velocity structure of the molecular cloud. Infrared observations obtained from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey and the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera, as well as radio continuum observations from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey, are used to extract information about the central HII region. This includes properties such as the ionizing photon rate and infrared luminos…
Connecting Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies -II. An Observationally Driven Analytical Model for Predicting Cloud-Scale Star Formation Rates
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）；Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik (HISKP), Universität Bonn（波恩大学赫尔姆霍兹辐射与核物理研究所）；Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Astronomical Institute（布拉格查理大学数学物理学院天文研究所）
We present Ekster, a new method for simulating star clusters from birth in a live galaxy simulation that combines the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method Phantom with the $N$-body method PeTar. With Ekster, it becomes possible to simulate individual stars in a simulation with only moderately high resolution for the gas, allowing us to study whole sections of a galaxy rather than be restricted to individual clouds. We use this method to simulate star and star cluster formation in spiral arms, investigating massive GMCs and spiral arm regions with lower mass clouds, from two galaxy mode…
Molecular hydrogen clouds are a key component of the interstellar medium because they are the birthplaces for stars. They are embedded in atomic gas that pervades the interstellar space. However, the details of how molecular clouds assemble from and interact with the atomic gas are still largely unknown. As a result of new observations of the 158~$μ$m line of ionized carbon CII in the Cygnus region within the FEEDBACK program on SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), we present compelling evidence that CII unveils dynamic interactions between cloud ensembles. This process is…
