ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

On the mass segregation of cores and stars

91   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Richard Parker
 تاريخ النشر 2019
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English
 تأليف Hayley L. Alcock




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

Observations of pre-/proto-stellar cores in young star-forming regions show them to be mass segregated, i.e. the most massive cores are centrally concentrated, whereas pre-main sequence stars in the same star-forming regions (and older regions) are not. We test whether this apparent contradiction can be explained by the massive cores fragmenting into stars of much lower mass, thereby washing out any signature of mass segregation in pre-main sequence stars. Whilst our fragmentation model can reproduce the stellar initial mass function, we find that the resultant distribution of pre-main sequence stars is mass segregated to an even higher degree than that of the cores, because massive cores still produce massive stars if the number of fragments is reasonably low (between one and five). We therefore suggest that the reason cores are observed to be mass segregated and stars are not is likely due to dynamical evolution of the stars, which can move significant distances in star-forming regions after their formation.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

184 - I. Jimenez-Serra 2012
We present high angular resolution observations (0.5x0.3) carried out with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) toward the AFGL2591 high-mass star forming region. Our SMA images reveal a clear chemical segregation within the AFGL2591 VLA 3 hot core, where d ifferent molecular species (Type I, II and III) appear distributed in three concentric shells. This is the first time that such a chemical segregation is ever reported at linear scales <3000 AU within a hot core. While Type I species (H2S and 13CS) peak at the AFGL2591 VLA 3 protostar, Type II molecules (HC3N, OCS, SO and SO2) show a double-peaked structure circumventing the continuum peak. Type III species, represented by CH3OH, form a ring-like structure surrounding the continuum emission. The excitation temperatures of SO2, HC3N and CH3OH (185+-11 K, 150+-20 K and 124+-12 K, respectively) show a temperature gradient within the AFGL2591 VLA 3 envelope, consistent with previous observations and modeling of the source. By combining the H2S, SO2 and CH3OH images, representative of the three concentric shells, we find that the global kinematics of the molecular gas follow Keplerian-like rotation around a 40 Mo-star. The chemical segregation observed toward AFGL2591 VLA 3 is explained by the combination of molecular UV photo-dissociation and a high-temperature (~1000 K) gas-phase chemistry within the low extinction innermost region in the AFGL2591 VLA 3 hot core.
Westerlund 1 is the most important starburst cluster in the Galaxy due to its massive star content. We have performed BVIc and JKs photometry to investigate the initial mass function (IMF). By comparing the observed color with the spectral type - int rinsic color relation, we obtain the mean interstellar reddening of <E(B-V)>=4.19+/-0.23 and <E(J-Ks)>=1.70+/-0.21. Due to the heavy extinction toward the cluster, the zero-age main sequence fitting method based on optical photometry proved to be inappropriate for the distance determination, while the near-infrared photometry gave a reliable distance to the cluster -- 3.8 kpc from the empirical relation. Using the recent theoretical stellar evolution models with rotation, the age of the cluster is estimated to be 5.0+/-1.0 Myr. We derived the IMF in the massive part and obtained a fairly shallow slope of {Gamma} = -0.8 +/- 0.1. The integration of the IMF gave a total mass for the cluster in excess of 5.0 x 10^4 solar mass. The IMF shows a clear radial variation indicating the presence of mass segregation. We also discuss the possible star formation history of Westerlund 1 from the presence of red supergiants and relatively low-luminosity yellow hypergiants.
179 - Richard J. Parker 2010
We use the new minimum spanning tree (MST) method to look for mass segregation in the Taurus association. The method computes the ratio of MST lengths of any chosen subset of objects, including the most massive stars and brown dwarfs, to the MST leng ths of random sets of stars and brown dwarfs in the cluster. This mass segregation ratio (Lambda_MSR) enables a quantitative measure of the spatial distribution of high-mass and low-mass stars, and brown dwarfs to be made in Taurus. We find that the most massive stars in Taurus are inversely mass segregated, with Lambda_MSR = 0.70 +/- 0.10 (Lambda_MSR = 1 corresponds to no mass segregation), which differs from the strong mass segregation signatures found in more dense and massive clusters such as Orion. The brown dwarfs in Taurus are not mass segregated, although we find evidence that some low-mass stars are, with an Lambda_MSR = 1.25 +/- 0.15. Finally, we compare our results to previous measures of the spatial distribution of stars and brown dwarfs in Taurus, and briefly discuss their implications.
Upon their formation, dynamically cool (collapsing) star clusters will, within only a few million years, achieve stellar mass segregation for stars down to a few solar masses, simply because of gravitational two-body encounters. Since binary systems are, on average, more massive than single stars, one would expect them to also rapidly mass segregate dynamically. Contrary to these expectations and based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope observations, we show that the compact, 15-30 Myr-old Large Magellanic Cloud cluster NGC 1818 exhibits tantalizing hints at the >= 2 sigma level of significance (> 3 sigma if we assume a power-law secondary-to-primary mass-ratio distribution) of an increasing fraction of F-star binary systems (with combined masses of 1.3-1.6 Msun) with increasing distance from the cluster center, specifically between the inner 10 to 20 (approximately equivalent to the clusters core and half-mass radii) and the outer 60 to 80. If confirmed, this will offer support of the theoretically predicted but thus far unobserved dynamical disruption processes of the significant population of soft binary systems---with relatively low binding energies compared to the kinetic energy of their stellar members---in star clusters, which we have access to here by virtue of the clusters unique combination of youth and high stellar density.
We present Plateau de Bure interferometer observations obtained in continuum at 1.3 and 3.5 mm towards the six most massive and young (IR-quiet) dense cores in Cygnus X. Located at only 1.7 kpc, the Cygnus X region offers the opportunity of reaching small enough scales (of the order of 1700 AU at 1.3 mm) to separate individual collapsing objects. The cores are sub-fragmented with a total of 23 fragments inside 5 cores. Only the most compact core, CygX-N63, could actually be a single massive protostar with an envelope mass as large as 60 Msun. The fragments in the other cores have sizes and separations similar to low-mass pre-stellar and proto-stellar condensations in nearby protoclusters, and are probably of the same nature. A total of 9 out of these 23 protostellar objects are found to be probable precursors of OB stars with envelope masses ranging from 6 to 23 Msun. The level of fragmentation is globally higher than in the turbulence regulated, monolithic collapse scenario, but is not as high as expected in a pure gravo-turbulent scenario where the distribution of mass is dominated by low-mass protostars/stars. Here, the fractions of the total core masses in the high-mass fragments are reaching values as high as 28, 44, and 100 % in CygX-N12, CygX-N53, and CygX-N63, respectively, much higher than what an IMF-like mass distribution would predict. The increase of the fragmentation efficiency as a function of density in the cores is proposed to be due to the increasing importance of self-gravity leading to gravitational collapse at the scale of the dense cores. At the same time, the cores tend to fragment into a few massive protostars within their central regions. We are therefore probably witnessing here the primordial mass segregation of clusters in formation.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا