The spine of the swan: a Herschel study of the DR21 ridge and filaments in Cygnus X [Letter]

Hennemann, M., Motte, F., Schneider, N., Didelon, P., Hill, T., Arzoumanian, D., Bontemps, S., Csengeri, T., Andre, Ph., Konyves, V., Louvet, F., Marston, A., Men'shchikov, A., Minier, V., Nguyen Luong, Q., Palmeirim, P., Peretto, Nicolas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6893-602X, Sauvage, M., Zavagno, A., Anderson, L. D., Bernard, J. -Ph., Di Francesco, J., Elia, D., Li, J. Z., Martin, P. G., Molinari, S., Pezzuto, S., Russeil, D., Rygl, K. L. J., Schisano, E., Spinoglio, L., Sousbie, T., Ward-Thompson, Derek ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1140-2761 and White, G. J. 2012. The spine of the swan: a Herschel study of the DR21 ridge and filaments in Cygnus X [Letter]. Astronomy and Astrophysics 543 , L3. 10.1051/0004-6361/201219429

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Abstract

In order to characterise the cloud structures responsible for the formation of high-mass stars, we present Herschel observations of the DR21 environment. Maps of the column density and dust temperature unveil the structure of the DR21 ridge and several connected filaments. The ridge has column densities higher than 1023 cm-2 over a region of 2.3 pc2. It shows substructured column density profiles and branches into two major filaments in the north. The masses in the filaments range between 130 and 1400 M⊙, whereas the mass in the ridge is 15 000 M⊙. The accretion of these filaments onto the DR21 ridge, suggested by a previous molecular line study, could provide a continuous mass inflow to the ridge. In contrast to the striations seen in, e.g., the Taurus region, these filaments are gravitationally unstable and form cores and protostars. These coresformed in the filaments potentially fall into the ridge. Both inflow and collisions of cores could be important to drive the observed high-mass star formation. The evolutionary gradient of star formation running from DR21 in the south to the northern branching is traced by decreasing dust temperature. This evolution and the ridge structure can be explained by two main filamentary components of the ridge that merged first in the south.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ISM: individual objects: DR 21 / ISM: general / ISM: structure / dust, extinction / stars: formation / ISM: individual objects: DR21(OH)
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0004-6361/ (accessed 16/04/2014)
Publisher:	EDP Sciences
ISSN:	0004-6361
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 04:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56258

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