Tracing evolution in massive protostellar objects - I. Fragmentation and emission properties of massive star-forming clumps in a luminosity-limited ALMA sample

Avison, A., Fuller, G. A., Frimpong, N. Asabre, Etoka, S., Hoare, M., Jones, B. M., Peretto, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6893-602X, Traficante, A., van der Tak, F., Pineda, J. E., Beltrán, M., Wyrowski, F., Thompson, M., Lumsden, S., Nagy, Z., Hill, T., Viti, S., Fontani, F. and Schilke, P. 2023. Tracing evolution in massive protostellar objects - I. Fragmentation and emission properties of massive star-forming clumps in a luminosity-limited ALMA sample. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 526 (2) , pp. 2278-2300. 10.1093/mnras/stad2824

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Abstract

The role of massive (≥ 8 ⁠) stars in defining the energy budget and chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium in their host galaxy is significant. In this first paper from the Tracing Evolution in Massive Protostellar Objects (TEMPO) project we introduce a colour-luminosity selected (L* ∼ 3 × 103 to 1 × 105 L⊙) sample of 38 massive star-forming regions observed with ALMA at 1.3 mm and explore the fragmentation, clustering, and flux density properties of the sample. The TEMPO sample fields are each found to contain multiple fragments (between 2 and 15 per field). The flux density budget is split evenly (53 per cent–47 per cent) between fields where emission is dominated by a single high flux density fragment and those in which the combined flux density of fainter objects dominates. The fragmentation scales observed in most fields are not comparable with the thermal Jeans length, λJ, being larger in the majority of cases, suggestive of some non-thermal mechanism. A tentative evolutionary trend is seen between luminosity of the clump and the ‘spectral line richness’ of the TEMPO fields; with 6.7 GHz maser associated fields found to be lower luminosity and more line rich. This work also describes a method of line-free continuum channel selection within ALMA data and a generalized approach used to distinguishing sources which are potentially star-forming from those which are not, utilizing interferometric visibility properties.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 January 2024
Date of Acceptance:	31 August 2023
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2024 11:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165954

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