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Young Stellar Objects (young + stellar_object)
Selected AbstractsAn unbiased pilot survey for Galactic water masersMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010J. L. Caswell ABSTRACT The Australia Telescope Compact Array has been used in a fast surveying mode to study the 22-GHz transition of water in two small sample regions of the southern Galactic plane. The observations allow an unbiased search for water masers, including any that may have no association with masers from other molecules (or indeed, no association with any other detectable celestial object). Positions with arcsecond accuracy were obtained from the original survey data for detected sources, and these were re-observed at an epoch more than two years later. Variability of the spectra between the epochs was considerable: our total of 32 masers comprises 24 detected at both epochs, two detected at only the first epoch and six detected at only the follow-up epoch. The success of our surveying mode shows it to be a practical strategy for the difficult task of extending unbiased water maser surveys to a large portion of the Galactic plane. Our results show quantitatively the effect of variability on the completeness of surveys conducted at a single epoch. Most of our maser detections are new discoveries. Only four had previously been detected (in searches towards interesting targets in the survey area). The high density of water masers from our unbiased survey supports earlier suggestions that they are the most populous maser species, and one of the most sensitive and reliable tracers of massive young stellar objects , newly forming massive young stars. The spectra of nine masers show high-velocity emission, and they show a striking preponderance of blueshifted high-velocity features. This is compatible with such blueshifts being a characteristic of populations dominated by masers at the earliest evolutionary stage of star formation, in some cases prior to the onset of methanol masers. Amongst the high-velocity emission sources there are two new examples where blueshifted high-velocity outflows dominate the total emission; these substantially increase the previously known meagre population of five such objects and suggest that they may be surprisingly abundant. [source] A study of the massive star-forming region M8 using images from the Spitzer Infrared Array CameraMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010Dewangan Lokesh Kumar ABSTRACT We present photometry and images (3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 ,m) from the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) of the star-forming region Messier 8 (M8). The IRAC photometry reveals ongoing star formation in the M8 complex, with 64 class 0/I and 168 class II sources identified in several locations in the vicinity of submm gas cores/clumps. Nearly 60 per cent of these young stellar objects (YSOs) occur in about seven small clusters. The spatial surface density of the clustered YSOs is determined to be about 10,20 YSOs pc,2. Fresh star formation by the process of ,collect and collapse' might have been triggered by the expanding H ii regions and winds from massive stars. IRAC ratio images are generated and studied in order to identify possible diagnostic emission regions in M8. The image of 4.5/8.0 ,m reveals a Br, counterpart of the optical Hourglass H ii region, while the ratio 8.0/4.5 ,m indicates PAH emission in a cavity-like structure to the east of the Hourglass. The ratio maps of 3.6/4.5, 5.8/4.5 and 8.0/4.5 ,m seem to identify PAH emission regions in the sharp ridges and filamentary structures seen east to west and north-east to south-west in the M8 complex. [source] Stellar contents and star formation in the young star cluster Be 59MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2008A. K. Pandey ABSTRACT We present UBV Ic CCD photometry of the young open cluster Be 59 with the aim to study the star formation scenario in the cluster. The radial extent of the cluster is found to be ,10 arcmin (2.9 pc). The interstellar extinction in the cluster region varies between E(B,V) , 1.4 to 1.8 mag. The ratio of total-to-selective extinction in the cluster region is estimated as 3.7 ± 0.3. The distance of the cluster is found to be 1.00 ± 0.05 kpc. Using near-infrared (NIR) colours and slitless spectroscopy, we have identified young stellar objects (YSOs) in the open cluster Be 59 region. The ages of these YSOs range between <1 and ,2 Myr, whereas the mean age of the massive stars in the cluster region is found to be ,2 Myr. There is evidence for second-generation star formation outside the boundary of the cluster, which may be triggered by massive stars in the cluster. The slope of the initial mass function, ,, in the mass range 2.5 < M/M,, 28 is found to be ,1.01 ± 0.11 which is shallower than the Salpeter value (,1.35), whereas in the mass range 1.5 < M/M,, 2.5 the slope is almost flat. The slope of the K -band luminosity function is estimated as 0.27 ± 0.02, which is smaller than the average value (,0.4) reported for young embedded clusters. Approximately 32 per cent of H, emission stars of Be 59 exhibit NIR excess indicating that inner discs of the T Tauri star (TTS) population have not dissipated. The Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) and IRAS-HIRES images around the cluster region are also used to study the emission from unidentified infrared bands and to estimate the spatial distribution of optical depth of warm and cold interstellar dust. [source] Spectropolarimetry of the 3-,m water-ice feature towards young stellar objectsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2002R. P. Holloway Abstract We present spectropolarimetry of the 3-,m water-ice feature towards five young stellar objects embedded in molecular clouds, including the Becklin,Neugebauer object, with wavelength range and spectral resolution much improved over previous studies. There is ice-feature polarization excess in four of the five sources and our observations indicate that the polarization is caused by the dichroic absorption of aligned grains in at least three of these. The ice-feature polarization excess is always accompanied by a systematic variation in the position angle of polarization, indicating that the ice-mantled grains are fractionated in the line of sight through a changing magnetic-field orientation. The results are compared with a recently published mid-infrared survey and we find good correlations between the polarization of the 3-,m ice feature and the 10-,m silicate feature, compelling evidence for the presence of water-ice mantled silicate grains, and which suggests that the core/mantle ratio does not differ widely between objects, an important result for grain models. [source] A disc-wind model with correct crossing of all magnetohydrodynamic critical surfacesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2000N. Vlahakis The classical Blandford & Payne model for the magneto-centrifugal acceleration and collimation of a disc-wind is revisited and refined. In the original model, the gas is cold and the solution is everywhere subfast magnetosonic. In the present model the plasma has a finite temperature and the self-consistent solution of the MHD equations starts with a subslow magnetosonic speed which subsequently crosses all critical points, at the slow magnetosonic, Alfvén and fast magnetosonic separatrix surfaces. The superfast magnetosonic solution thus satisfies MHD causality. Downstream of the fast magnetosonic critical point the poloidal streamlines overfocus towards the axis and the solution is terminated. The validity of the model to disc winds associated with young stellar objects is briefly discussed. [source] X-rays from the HII Regions and Molecular Clouds near the Galactic CenterASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue S1 2003Katsuji Koyama Abstract We report measurements by Chandra of a variety of X-ray sources in the molecular clouds and HII regions of the Sgr B2, Arches, Quintuplet and the Galactic center clusters. Moderately bright X-ray sources are present in the Sgr B2, Quintuplet and the Galactic center clusters at the positions of ultra compact HII regions and bright infrared sources. Their X-ray spectra are fitted with models of a thin thermal plasma with 2,10 keV temperatures and luminosities of ,1032,33erg s,1. The X-ray properties are typical of those of high-mass young stellar objects or clusters of such objects. The Arches Cluster has three bright X-ray sources, at the positions of bright IR and radio stars, with X-ray luminosities of a few ×1033 erg s,1 each, which may indicate an unusual X-ray emission mechanism from high mass YSOs. A unique X-ray feature of molecular clouds and HII regions near the Galactic center is the presence of diffuse emission with a strong 6.4 keV line; in Sgr B2 this is attributable to the fluorescence of gas irradiated by external sources in the Galactic center, while the diffuse emission from Arches is puzzling. [source] | ||||||||||