scholarly journals Properties of star forming regions in the Magellanic Clouds

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S256) ◽  
pp. 215-226
Author(s):  
Mónica Rubio

AbstractUnderstanding the process of star formation in low metallicity systems is one of the key studies in the early stages of galaxy evolution. The Magellanic Clouds, being the nearest examples of low metallicity systems, allow us to study in detail their star forming regions. As a consequence of their proximity we can resolve the molecular clouds and the regions of star formation individually. Therefore we can increase our knowledge of the interaction of young luminous stars with their environment. We will present results of multiwavelenghts studies of LMC and SMC massive star forming regions, which includes properties of the cold molecular gas, the embedded young population associated with molecular clouds, and the interaction of newly born stars with the surrounding interstellar medium, based on ASTE and APEX submillimeter observations complemented high sensitivity NIR groud based observations and Spitzer results.

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (S315) ◽  
pp. 26-29
Author(s):  
Julia Kamenetzky ◽  
Naseem Rangwala ◽  
Jason Glenn ◽  
Philip Maloney ◽  
Alex Conley

AbstractMolecular gas is the raw material for star formation and is commonly traced by the carbon monoxide (CO) molecule. The atmosphere blocks all but the lowest-J transitions of CO for observatories on the ground, but the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory revealed the CO emission of nearby galaxies from J = 4−3 to J = 13−12. Herschel showed that mid- and high-J CO lines in nearby galaxies are emitted from warm gas, accounting for approximately 10% of the molecular mass, but the majority of the CO luminosity. The energy budget of this warm, highly-excited gas is a significant window into the feedback interactions among molecular gas, star formation, and galaxy evolution. Likely, mechanical heating is required to explain the excitation. Such gas has also been observed in star forming regions within our galaxy.We have examined all ~300 spectra of galaxies from the Herschel Fourier Transform Spectrometer and measured line fluxes or upper limits for the CO J = 4−3 to J = 13−12, [CI], and [NII] 205 micron lines in ~200 galaxies, taking systematic effects of the FTS into account. We will present our line fitting method, illustrate trends available so far in this large sample, and preview the full 2-component radiative transfer likelihood modeling of the CO emission using an illustrative sample of 20 galaxies, including comparisons to well-resolved galactic regions. This work is a comprehensive study of mid- and high-J CO emission among a variety of galaxy types, and can be used as a resource for future (sub)millimeter studies of galaxies with ground-based instruments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 608 ◽  
pp. A98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Salomé ◽  
P. Salomé ◽  
M.-A. Miville-Deschênes ◽  
F. Combes ◽  
S. Hamer

NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) is one of the best targets to study AGN feedback in the local Universe. At 13.5 kpc from the galaxy, optical filaments with recent star formation lie along the radio jet direction. This region is a testbed for positive feedback, here through jet-induced star formation. Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) observations have revealed strong CO emission in star-forming regions and in regions with no detected tracers of star formation activity. In cases where star formation is observed, this activity appears to be inefficient compared to the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. We used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to map the 12CO(1–0) emission all along the filaments of NGC 5128 at a resolution of 1.3′′ ~ 23.8pc. We find that the CO emission is clumpy and is distributed in two main structures: (i) the Horseshoe complex, located outside the HI cloud, where gas is mostly excited by shocks and where no star formation is observed, and (ii) the Vertical filament, located at the edge of the HI shell, which is a region of moderate star formation. We identified 140 molecular clouds using a clustering method applied to the CO data cube. A statistical study reveals that these clouds have very similar physical properties, such as size, velocity dispersion, and mass, as in the inner Milky Way. However, the range of radius available with the present ALMA observations does not enable us to investigate whether or not the clouds follow the Larson relation. The large virial parameter αvir of the clouds suggests that gravity is not dominant and clouds are not gravitationally unstable. Finally, the total energy injection in the northern filaments of Centaurus A is of the same order as in the inner part of the Milky Way. The strong CO emission detected in the northern filaments is an indication that the energy injected by the jet acts positively in the formation of dense molecular gas. The relatively high virial parameter of the molecular clouds suggests that the injected kinetic energy is too strong for star formation to be efficient. This is particularly the case in the horseshoe complex, where the virial parameter is the largest and where strong CO is detected with no associated star formation. This is the first evidence of AGN positive feedback in the sense of forming molecular gas through shocks, associated with low star formation efficiency due to turbulence injection by the interaction with the radio jet.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. eabe9511
Author(s):  
Matteo Luisi ◽  
Loren D. Anderson ◽  
Nicola Schneider ◽  
Robert Simon ◽  
Slawa Kabanovic ◽  
...  

Radiative and mechanical feedback of massive stars regulates star formation and galaxy evolution. Positive feedback triggers the creation of new stars by collecting dense shells of gas, while negative feedback disrupts star formation by shredding molecular clouds. Although key to understanding star formation, their relative importance is unknown. Here, we report velocity-resolved observations from the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) legacy program FEEDBACK of the massive star-forming region RCW 120 in the [CII] 1.9-THz fine-structure line, revealing a gas shell expanding at 15 km/s. Complementary APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) CO J = 3-2 345-GHz observations exhibit a ring structure of molecular gas, fragmented into clumps that are actively forming stars. Our observations demonstrate that triggered star formation can occur on much shorter time scales than hitherto thought (<0.15 million years), suggesting that positive feedback operates on short time periods.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (S314) ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Charles J. Lada

AbstractStudies of molecular clouds and young stars near the sun have provided invaluable insights into the process of star formation. Indeed, much of our physical understanding of this topic has been derived from such studies. Perhaps the two most fundamental problems confronting star formation research today are: 1) determining the origin of stellar mass and 2) deciphering the nature of the physical processes that control the star formation rate in molecular gas. As I will briefly outline here, observations and studies of local star forming regions are making particularly significant contributions toward the solution of both these important problems.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 851-853 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. B. Peck ◽  
A. Tarchi ◽  
C. Henkel ◽  
N. M. Nagar ◽  
J. Braatz ◽  
...  

AbstractWe report new detections of three H2O megamasers and one kilomaser using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. Isotropic luminosities are ~50, 300, 1, and 230 L⊙ for Mrk 1066, Mrk 34, NGC 3556, and Arp 299, respectively. Mrk 34 contains the most distant H2O megamaser ever detected in a Seyfert. Our targets in this survey were chosen to fit one of the following criteria: 1) to have a high probability of interaction between the radio jet and the ISM within the central few parsecs of the radio galaxy, yielding masers which arise in local molecular clouds; or 2) to have very bright IRAS sources in which massive star forming regions might yield powerful masers. The ‘jet maser’ sources can provide detailed information about the conditions in the ISM in the central 1-10 pc of AGN. The extra-galactic ‘star formation masers’ can be used to pinpoint and characterize locations of high mass star formation in nearby galaxies. In addition, these sources will help to provide a better understanding of the chemical properties of molecular clouds in extra-galactic systems.


1992 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 227-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Mcgonagle ◽  
William Irvine ◽  
Young Minh

Gas phase models of ion molecule chemistry have been rather successful in matching the observed abundances of small interstellar molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. However, the situation is somewhat less clear for nitrogen-containing species, partly because the important initiating reaction N+ + H2 is slightly endothermic; and for sulfur-containing molecules, where it remains uncertain whether it is necessary to invoke surface reactions on grains to match the observed abundances. As a relatively simple species, the abundance of nitrogen sulfide should provide a good test of the models of the coupled chemistry of nitrogen and sulfur. Until very recently only two molecules containing both these elements were known in the interstellar medium, NS and HNCS, and both have been observed only in Sgr B2. We have therefore undertaken a survey for interstellar NS in Galactic molecular clouds using the FCRAO 14-meter telescope. The 2Π1/2, J = 5/2 → 3/2, transition has in fact been detected in many regions of massive star formation (see table).


2018 ◽  
Vol 615 ◽  
pp. A129 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Joblin ◽  
E. Bron ◽  
C. Pinto ◽  
P. Pilleri ◽  
F. Le Petit ◽  
...  

Context. In bright photodissociation regions (PDR) associated with massive star formation, the presence of dense “clumps” that are immersed in a less dense interclump medium is often proposed to explain the difficulty of models to account for the observed gas emission in high-excitation lines. Aims. We aim to present a comprehensive view of the modelling of the CO rotational ladder in PDRs, including the high-J lines that trace warm molecular gas at PDR interfaces. Methods. We observed the 12CO and 13CO ladders in two prototypical PDRs, the Orion Bar and NGC 7023 NW using the instruments onboard Herschel. We also considered line emission from key species in the gas cooling of PDRs (C+, O, and H2) and other tracers of PDR edges such as OH and CH+. All the intensities are collected from Herschel observations, the literature and the Spitzer archive and were analysed using the Meudon PDR code. Results. A grid of models was run to explore the parameter space of only two parameters: thermal gas pressure and a global scaling factor that corrects for approximations in the assumed geometry. We conclude that the emission in the high-J CO lines, which were observed up to Jup = 23 in the Orion Bar (Jup = 19 in NGC 7023), can only originate from small structures with typical thicknesses of a few 10−3 pc and at high thermal pressures (Pth ~ 108 K cm−3). Conclusions. Compiling data from the literature, we find that the gas thermal pressure increases with the intensity of the UV radiation field given by G0, following a trend in line with recent simulations of the photoevaporation of illuminated edges of molecular clouds. This relation can help to rationalise the analysis of high-J CO emission in massive star formation and provides an observational constraint for models which study stellar feedback on molecular clouds.


Author(s):  
Shinji Fujita ◽  
Hidetoshi Sano ◽  
Rei Enokiya ◽  
Katsuhiro Hayashi ◽  
Mikito Kohno ◽  
...  

Abstract Herein, we present results from observations of the 12CO (J = 1–0), 13CO (J = 1–0), and 12CO (J = 2–1) emission lines toward the Carina nebula complex (CNC) obtained with the Mopra and NANTEN2 telescopes. We focused on massive-star-forming regions associated with the CNC including the three star clusters Tr 14, Tr 15, and Tr 16, and the isolated WR-star HD 92740. We found that the molecular clouds in the CNC are separated into mainly four clouds at velocities −27, −20, −14, and −8 km s−1. Their masses are 0.7 × 104 M⊙, 5.0 × 104 M⊙, 1.6 × 104 M⊙, and 0.7 × 104 M⊙, respectively. Most are likely associated with the star clusters, because of their high 12CO (J = 2–1)/12CO (J = 1–0) intensity ratios and their correspondence to the Spitzer 8 μm distributions. In addition, these clouds show the observational signatures of cloud–cloud collisions. In particular, there is a V-shaped structure in the position–velocity diagram and a complementary spatial distribution between the −20 km s−1 cloud and the −14 km s−1 cloud. Furthermore, we found that SiO emission, which is a tracer of a shocked molecular gas, is enhanced between the colliding clouds by using ALMA archive data. Based on these observational signatures, we propose a scenario wherein the formation of massive stars in the clusters was triggered by a collision between the two clouds. By using the path length of the collision and the assumed velocity separation, we estimate the timescale of the collision to be ∼1 Myr. This is comparable to the ages of the clusters estimated in previous studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (S321) ◽  
pp. 214-216
Author(s):  
Linda C. Watson

AbstractWe found that star-forming regions in extended ultraviolet (XUV) disks are generally consistent with the molecular-hydrogen Kennicutt-Schmidt law that applies within the inner, optical disk. This is true for star formation rates based on Hα + 24 μm data or FUV + 24 μm data. We estimated that the star-forming regions have ages of 1 − 7 Myr and propose that the presence or absence of molecular gas provides an additional “clock” that may help distinguish between aging and stochasticity as the explanation for the low Hα-to-FUV flux ratios in XUV disks. This contribution is a summary of the work originally presented in Watson et al. (2016).


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S255) ◽  
pp. 397-401
Author(s):  
David J. Rosario ◽  
Carlos Hoyos ◽  
David Koo ◽  
Andrew Phillips

AbstractWe present a study of remarkably luminous and unique dwarf galaxies at redshifts of 0.5 < z < 0.7, selected from the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift survey by the presence of the temperature sensitive [OIII]λ4363 emission line. Measurements of this important auroral line, as well as other strong oxygen lines, allow us to estimate the integrated oxygen abundances of these galaxies accurately without being subject to the degeneracy inherent in the standard R23 system used by most studies. [O/H] estimates range between 1/5–1/10 of the solar value. Not surprisingly, these systems are exceedingly rare and hence represent a population that is not typically present in local surveys such as SDSS, or smaller volume deep surveys such as GOODS.Our low-metallicity galaxies exhibit many unprecedented characteristics. With B-band luminosities close to L*, thse dwarfs lie significantly away from the luminosity-metallicity relationships of both local and intermediate redshift star-forming galaxies. Using stellar masses determined from optical and NIR photometry, we show that they also deviate strongly from corresponding mass-metallicity relationships. Their specific star formation rates are high, implying a significant burst of recent star formation. A campaign of high resolution spectroscopic follow-up shows that our galaxies have dynamical properties similar to local HII and compact emission line galaxies, but mass-to-light ratios that are much higher than average star-forming dwarfs.The low metallicities, high specific star formation rates, and small halo masses of our galaxies mark them as lower redshift analogs of Lyman-Break galaxies, which, at z ~ 2 are evolving onto the metallicity sequence that we observe in the galaxy population of today. In this sense, these systems offer fundamental insights into the physical processes and regulatory mechanisms that drive galaxy evolution in that epoch of major star formation and stellar mass assembly.


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