scholarly journals Wide Field Star Count Mapping of Large Scale Areas of Star Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud

1994 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 516-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kontizas ◽  
S.E. Maravelias ◽  
A. Dapergolas ◽  
Y. Bellas-Velidis ◽  
M. Kontizas

Star formation in galaxies is a major astrophysical problem which can be investigated in several ways. The distribution and loci of all kinds of young objects, including OB associations, young clusters, HII regions, GMCs, Bok globules, dark clouds, dust lanes, protostars, as well as YSOs detected in NIR and FIR surveys constitute the principal signposts for this investigation. The individual nature of all these objects has been and is still continously studied. However it is also extremely interesting to associate the coexistence of these objects, and their relation to the structure of the parent galaxy. Such studies have been carried out by several investigators and are frequently summarized when star formation processes are examined.

Author(s):  
E. Kontizas ◽  
S. E. Maravelias ◽  
A. Dapergolas ◽  
Y. Bellas-Velidis ◽  
M. Kontizas

2018 ◽  
Vol 620 ◽  
pp. A198 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Martinache ◽  
A. Rettura ◽  
H. Dole ◽  
M. Lehnert ◽  
B. Frye ◽  
...  

There is a lack of large samples of spectroscopically confirmed clusters and protoclusters at high redshifts, z > 1.5. Discovering and characterizing distant (proto-)clusters is important for yielding insights into the formation of large-scale structure and on the physical processes responsible for regulating star-formation in galaxies in dense environments. The Spitzer Planck Herschel Infrared Cluster (SPHerIC) survey was initiated to identify these characteristically faint and dust-reddened sources during the epoch of their early assembly. We present Spitzer/IRAC observations of 82 galaxy (proto-)cluster candidates at 1.3 < zp < 3.0 that were vetted in a two step process: (1) using Planck to select by color those sources with the highest star-formation rates, and (2) using Herschel at higher resolution to separate out the individual red sources. The addition of the Spitzer data enables efficient detection of the central and massive brightest red cluster galaxies (BRCGs). We find that BRCGs are associated with highly significant, extended and crowded regions of IRAC sources which are more overdense than the field. This result corroborates our hypothesis that BRCGs within the Planck–Herschel sources trace some of the densest and actively star-forming proto-clusters in the early Universe. On the basis of a richness-mass proxy relation, we obtain an estimate of their mean masses which suggests our sample consists of some of the most massive clusters at z ≈ 2 and are the likely progenitors of the most massive clusters observed today.


2003 ◽  
Vol 173 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yurii N. Efremov ◽  
Artur D. Chernin

1987 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 457-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Elmegreen

The hypothesis that density waves trigger star formation is critically examined. Much of the former evidence in favor of the hypothesis is shown to be inconsistent with modern observations. A comparison between galaxies with and without density waves reveals no significant difference in their star formation rates. A new role for density waves in the context of star formation might be based on four principles: 1. density waves are intrinsically strong, 2. the gas is compressed more than the stars in the wave, 3. star formation follows the gas, with no preferential trigger related to the wave itself, and 4. regions of star formation are larger in the spiral arms than they are between the arms. This new role for density waves is primarily one of organization: the waves place most of the gas in the arms, so most of the star formation is in the arms too. The waves also promote the coagulation of small clouds into large cloud complexes, or superclouds, by what appears to be a combination of collisional agglomeration and large-scale gravitational instabilities. Special regions where density waves do trigger a true excess of star formation are discussed, and possible reasons for the difference between these triggering waves and the more common, organizing, waves are mentioned. Other aspects of large-scale star formation, such as the occurrence of kiloparsec-size regions of activity and kiloparsec-range propagation, are illustrated with numerous examples. The importance of these largest scales to the overall mechanism of star formation in galaxies is emphasized.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S256) ◽  
pp. 281-286
Author(s):  
Carme Gallart ◽  
Ingrid Meschin ◽  
Antonio Aparicio ◽  
Peter B. Stetson ◽  
Sebastián L. Hidalgo

AbstractBased on the quantitative analysis of a set of wide-field color—magnitude diagrams reaching the old main sequence-turnoffs, we present new LMC star-formation histories, and their variation with galactocentric distance. Some coherent features are found, together with systematic variations of the star-formation history among the three fields analyzed. We find two main episodes of star formation in all three fields, from 1 to 4 and 7 to 13 Gyr ago, with relatively low star formation around ≃ 4–7 Gyr ago. The youngest age in each field gradually increases with galactocentric radius; in the innermost field, LMC 0514–6503, an additional star formation event younger than 1 Gyr is detected, with star formation declining, however, in the last ≃ 200 Myr. The population is found to be older on average toward the outer part of the galaxy, although star formation in all fields seems to have started around 13 Gyr ago.


1999 ◽  
Vol 190 ◽  
pp. 343-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. A. Smecker-Hane ◽  
J. S. Gallagher ◽  
Andrew Cole ◽  
P. B. Stetson ◽  
E. Tolstoy

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is unique among galaxies in the Local Group in that it is the most massive non-spiral, is relatively gas-rich, and is actively forming stars. Determining its star-formation rate (SFR) as a function of time will be a cornerstone in our understanding of galaxy evolution. The best method of deriving a galaxy's past SFR is to compare the densities of stars in a color-magnitude diagram (CMD), a Hess diagram, with model Hess diagrams. The LMC has a complex stellar population with ages ranging from 0 to ~ 14 Gyr and metallicities from −2 ≲ [Fe/H] ≲ −0.4, and deriving its SFR and simultaneously constraining model input parameters (distance, age-metallicity relation, reddening, and stellar models) requires well-populated CMDs that span the magnitude range 15 ≤ V ≤ 24. Although existing CMDs of field stars in the LMC show tantalizing evidence for a significant burst of star formation that occurred ~ 3 Gyr ago (for examples, see Westerlund et al. 1995; Vallenari et al. 1996; Elson, et al. 1997; Gallagher et al. 1999, and references therein), estimates of the enhancement in the SFR vary from factors of 3 to 50. This uncertainty is caused by the relatively large photometric errors that plague crowded ground-based images, and the small number statistics that plague CMDs created from single Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (H15) ◽  
pp. 796-796
Author(s):  
G. A. Fuller ◽  
N. Peretto

AbstractTo better characterise infrared dark clouds (IRDCs), and the star formation within them, a comprehensive catalogue of IRDCs has been constructed from the Spitzer GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL archival data. Mosaicing the individual survey blocks together, we have used a new extraction method to identify dark clouds up to 30′ in size, and produce a column density image of each cloud. In total the catalogue contains over 11,000 clouds, defined as connected regions with 8 micron optical depth > 0.35 (corresponding to column densities < 1022 cm−2). The extraction algorithm also identifies sub-structures (fragments) within each cloud. These Spitzer dark clouds (SDCs) range in mass from 10M⊙ to 104M⊙. About 80% of the SDCs were previously unidentified. Only ~ 30% of the SDCs are associated with 24μm point-like sources, leaving the majority of these clouds with no apparent sign of star formation activity. This new catalogue provides an important new resource for future studies of the initial conditions of star formation in the Galaxy.


2007 ◽  
Vol 671 (1) ◽  
pp. 374-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao‐Chin Yang ◽  
Robert A. Gruendl ◽  
You‐Hua Chu ◽  
Mordecai‐Mark Mac Low ◽  
Yasuo Fukui

Author(s):  
Masao Hayashi ◽  
Yusei Koyama ◽  
Tadayuki Kodama ◽  
Yutaka Komiyama ◽  
Yen-Ting Lin ◽  
...  

Abstract We present the large-scale structure over a more than 50 comoving Mpc scale at $z \sim 0.9$ where the CL1604 supercluster, which is one of the largest structures ever known at high redshifts, is embedded. The wide-field deep imaging survey by the Subaru Strategic Program with the Hyper Suprime-Cam reveals that the already-known CL1604 supercluster is a mere part of larger-scale structure extending to both the north and the south. We confirm that there are galaxy clusters at three slightly different redshifts in the northern and southern sides of the supercluster by determining the redshifts of 55 red-sequence galaxies and 82 star-forming galaxies in total via follow-up spectroscopy with Subaru/FOCAS and Gemini-N/GMOS. This suggests that the structure known as the CL1604 supercluster is the tip of the iceberg. We investigate the stellar population of the red-sequence galaxies using 4000 Å break and Balmer H$\delta$ absorption lines. Almost all of the red-sequence galaxies brighter than $21.5\:$mag in the z band show an old stellar population of $\gtrsim\! 2\:$Gyr. The comparison of composite spectra of the red-sequence galaxies in the individual clusters show that the galaxies at a similar redshift have a similar stellar population age, even if they are located $\sim\! 50\:$Mpc apart from each other. However, there could be a large variation in the star formation history. Therefore, it is likely that galaxies associated with the large-scale structure on a 50 Mpc scale formed at almost the same time, have assembled into the denser regions, and then have evolved with different star formation history along the hierarchical growth of the cosmic web.


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