Alcock, H.L. and Parker, R.J. (2019) On the mass segregation of cores and stars. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 490 (1). pp. 350-358. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
Observations of pre- and 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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | stars: protostars; open clusters and associations: general |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Royal Society DH150108 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 31 Mar 2020 13:07 |
Last Modified: | 31 Mar 2020 13:07 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stz2646 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158837 |