No Arabic abstract
Massive stars are expected to produce wind-blown bubbles in the interstellar medium; however, ring nebulae, suggesting the existence of bubbles, are rarely seen around main-sequence O stars. To search for wind-blown bubbles around main-sequence O stars, we have obtained high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 images and high-dispersion echelle spectra of two pristine HII regions, N11B and N180B, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. These HII regions are ionized by OB associations that still contain O3 stars, suggesting that the HII regions are young and have not hosted any supernova explosions. Our observations show that wind-blown bubbles in these HII regions can be detected kinematically but not morphologically because their expansion velocities are comparable to or only slightly higher than the isothermal sound velocity in the HII regions. Bubbles are detected around concentrations of massive stars, individual O stars, and even an evolved red supergiant (a fossil bubble). Comparisons between the observed bubble dynamics and model predictions show a large discrepancy (1--2 orders of magnitude) between the stellar wind luminosity derived from bubble observations and models and that derived from observations of stellar winds. The number and distribution of bubbles in N11B differ from those in N180B, which can be explained by the difference in the richness of stellar content between these two HII regions. Most of the bubbles observed in N11B and N180B show a blister-structure, indicating that the stars were formed on the surfaces of dense clouds. Numerous small dust clouds, similar to Bok globules or elephant trunks, are detected in these HII regions and at least one of them hosts on-going star formation.
Context. The derived physical parameters for young HII regions are normally determined assuming the emission region to be optically thin. However, this assumption is unlikely to hold for young HII regions such as hyper-compact HII(HCHII) and ultra-compact HII(UCHII) regions and leads to the underestimation of their properties. This can be overcome by fitting the SEDs over a wide range of radio frequencies. Aims. The two primary goals of this study are (1) to determine the physical properties of young HII regions from radio SEDs in the search for potential HCHII regions, and (2) to use these physical properties to investigate their evolution. Method. We used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to observe the X-band and K-band with angular resolutions of ~1.7 and ~0.7, respectively, toward 114 HII regions with rising-spectra between 1-5 GHz. We complement our observations with VLA archival data and construct SEDs in the range of 1-26 GHz and model them assuming an ionization-bounded HII region with uniform density. Results. Our sample has a mean electron density of ne=1.6E4cm^{-3}, diameter diam=0.14pc, and emission measure EM = 1.9E7pc*cm^{-6}. We identify 16 HCHII region candidates and 8 intermediate objects between the classes of HCHII and UCHII regions. The ne, diam, and EM change as expected, but the Lyman continuum flux is relatively constant over time. We find that about 67% of Lyman-continuum photons are absorbed by dust within these HII regions and the dust absorption fraction tends to be more significant for more compact and younger HII regions. Conclusion. Young HII regions are commonly located in dusty clumps; HCHII regions and intermediate objects are often associated with various masers, outflows, broad radio recombination lines, and extended green objects, and the accretion at the two stages tends to be quickly reduced or halted.
High-mass stars form in much richer environments than those associated with isolated low-mass stars, and once they reach a certain mass, produce ionised (HII) regions. The formation of these pockets of ionised gas are unique to the formation of high-mass stars (M $>8$ M$_odot$), and present an excellent opportunity to study the final stages of accretion, which could include accretion through the HII region itself. This study of the dynamics of the gas on both sides of these ionisation boundaries in very young HII regions aims to quantify the relationship between the HII regions and their immediate environments.We present high-resolution ($sim$ 0.5$$) ALMA observations of nine HII regions selected from the Red MSX Source (RMS) survey with compact radio emission and bolometric luminosities greater than 10$^4$ L$_odot$. We focus on the initial presentation of the data, including initial results from the radio recombination line H29$alpha$, some complementary molecules, and the 256 GHz continuum emission. Of the six (out of nine) regions with H29$alpha$ detections, two appear to have cometary morphologies with velocity gradients across them, and two appear more spherical with velocity gradients suggestive of infalling ionised gas. The remaining two were either observed at low resolution or had signals that were too weak to draw robust conclusions. We also present a description of the interactions between the ionised and molecular gas (as traced by CS (J=5-4)), often (but not always) finding theHII region had cleared its immediate vicinity of molecules. Of our sample of nine, the observations of the two clusters expected to have the youngest HII regions (from previous radio observations) are suggestive of having infalling motions in the H29$alpha$ emission, which could be indicative of late stage accretion onto the stars despite the presence of an HII region.
Mid-infrared arcs of dust emission are often seen near ionizing stars within HII regions. A possible explanations for these arcs is that they could show the outer edges of asymmetric stellar wind bubbles. We use two-dimensional, radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of wind bubbles within HII regions around individual stars to predict the infrared emission properties of the dust within the HII region. We assume that dust and gas are dynamically well-coupled and that dust properties (composition, size distribution) are the same in the HII region as outside it, and that the wind bubble contains no dust. We post-process the simulations to make synthetic intensity maps at infrared wavebands using the TORUS code. We find that the outer edge of a wind bubble emits brightly at 24um through starlight absorbed by dust grains and re-radiated thermally in the infrared. This produces a bright arc of emission for slowly moving stars that have asymmetric wind bubbles, even for cases where there is no bow shock or any corresponding feature in tracers of gas emission. The 24um intensity decreases exponentially from the arc with increasing distance from the star because the dust temperature decreases with distance. The size distribution and composition of the dust grains has quantitative but not qualitative effects on our results. Despite the simplifications of our model, we find good qualitative agreement with observations of the HII region RCW120, and can provide physical explanations for any quantitative differences. Our model produces an infrared arc with the same shape and size as the arc around CD -38 11636 in RCW120, and with comparable brightness. This suggests that infrared arcs around O stars in HII regions may be revealing the extent of stellar wind bubbles, although we have not excluded other explanations.
We present an analysis of wind-blown, parsec-sized, mid-infrared bubbles and associated star-formation using GLIMPSE/IRAC, MIPSGAL/MIPS and MAGPIS/VLA surveys. Three bubbles from the Churchwell et al. (2006) catalog were selected. The relative distribution of the ionized gas (based on 20 cm emission), PAH emission (based on 8 um, 5.8 um and lack of 4.5 um emission) and hot dust (24 um emission) are compared. At the center of each bubble there is a region containing ionized gas and hot dust, surrounded by PAHs. We identify the likely source(s) of the stellar wind and ionizing flux producing each bubble based upon SED fitting to numerical hot stellar photosphere models. Candidate YSOs are also identified using SED fitting, including several sites of possible triggered star formation.
We have used the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to make observations of a sample of eight young ultra-compact HII regions, selected on the basis that they have associated class II methanol maser emission. We have made observations sensitive to both compact and extended structures and find both to be present in most sources. The scale of the extended emission in our sample is in general less than that observed towards samples based on IRAS properties, or large single-dish flux densities. Our observations are consistent with a scenario where extended and compact radio continuum emission coexists within HII regions for a significant period of time. We suggest that these observations are consistent with a model where HII evolution takes place within hierarchically structured molecular clouds. This model is the subject of a companion paper (Shabala et al. 2005) and addresses both the association between compact and extended emission and UCHII region lifetime problem.