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ATLASGAL - towards a complete sample of massive star forming clumps

Urquhart, J.S., Moore, T.J.T., Csengeri, T., Wyrowski, F., Schuller, F., Hoare, M.G., Lumsden, S.L., Mottram, J.C., Thompson, M.A., Menten, K.M., and others. (2014) ATLASGAL - towards a complete sample of massive star forming clumps. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 443 (2). pp. 1555-1586. ISSN 0035-8711. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stu1207) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:52187)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1207

Abstract

By matching infrared-selected, massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) and compact HII regions in the Red MSX Source survey to massive clumps found in the submillimetre ATLASGAL (APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy) survey, we have identified ~1000 embedded young massive stars between 280{ring operator} < l<350{ring operator} and 10{ring operator} < l<60{ring operator} with | b | < 1{ring operator}. 5. Combined with an existing sample of radio-selected methanol masers and compact HII regions, the result is a catalogue of ~1700 massive stars embedded within ~1300 clumps located across the inner Galaxy, containing three observationally distinct subsamples, methanol-maser, MYSO and HII-region associations, covering the most important tracers of massive star formation, thought to represent key stages of evolution. We find that massive star formation is strongly correlated with the regions of highest column density in spherical, centrally condensed clumps. We find no significant differences between the three samples in clump structure or the relative location of the embedded stars, which suggests that the structure of a clump is set before the onset of star formation, and changes little as the embedded object evolves towards the main sequence. There is a strong linear correlation between clump mass and bolometric luminosity, with the most massive stars forming in the most massive clumps. We find that the MYSO and HII-region subsamples are likely to cover a similar range of evolutionary stages and that the majority are near the end of their main accretion phase. We find few infrared-bright MYSOs associated with the most massive clumps, probably due to very short pre-main-sequence lifetimes in the most luminous sources. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1093/mnras/stu1207
Uncontrolled keywords: Galaxy: structure, HII regions, ISM: clouds, Mass function, Stars: early-type, Stars: formation, Stars: luminosity function
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy > QB460 Astrophysics
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: James Urquhart
Date Deposited: 24 Nov 2015 11:56 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 10:59 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/52187 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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