Eden, DJ, Moore, TJT, Plume, R et al. (12 more authors) (2020) Characteristic scale of star formation – I. Clump formation efficiency on local scales. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 500 (1). pp. 191-210. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
We have used the ratio of column densities derived independently from the 850-μm continuum James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Plane Survey and the 13CO/C18O (J = 3 → 2) Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey to produce maps of the dense-gas mass fraction (DGMF) in two slices of the Galactic plane centred at ℓ = 30° and 40°. The observed DGMF is a metric for the instantaneous clump formation efficiency (CFE) in the molecular gas. We split the two fields into velocity components corresponding to the spiral arms that cross them, and a two-dimensional power-spectrum analysis of the spiral-arm DGMF maps reveals a break in slope at the approximate size scale of molecular clouds. We interpret this as the characteristic scale of the amplitude of variations in the CFE and a constraint on the dominant mechanism regulating the CFE and, hence, the star formation efficiency in CO-traced clouds.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
Keywords: | stars: formation, ISM: individual objects: W43, ISM: kinematics and dynamics, submillimetre: ISM |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 Jul 2022 14:16 |
Last Modified: | 12 Jul 2022 14:16 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/staa3188 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188763 |