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- Henshaw, Jonathan D., et al.
(författare)
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Ubiquitous velocity fluctuations throughout the molecular interstellar medium
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Astronomy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-3366. ; 4:11, s. 1064-1071
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The density structure of the interstellar medium determines where stars form and release energy, momentum and heavy elements, driving galaxy evolution1–4. Density variations are seeded and amplified by gas motion, but the exact nature of this motion is unknown across spatial scales and galactic environments5. Although dense star-forming gas probably emerges from a combination of instabilities6,7, convergent flows8 and turbulence9, establishing the precise origin is challenging because it requires gas motion to be quantified over many orders of magnitude in spatial scale. Here we measure10–12 the motion of molecular gas in the Milky Way and in nearby galaxy NGC 4321, assembling observations that span a spatial dynamic range 10−1–103 pc. We detect ubiquitous velocity fluctuations across all spatial scales and galactic environments. Statistical analysis of these fluctuations indicates how star-forming gas is assembled. We discover oscillatory gas flows with wavelengths ranging from 0.3–400 pc. These flows are coupled to regularly spaced density enhancements that probably form via gravitational instabilities13,14. We also identify stochastic and scale-free velocity and density fluctuations, consistent with the structure generated in turbulent flows9. Our results demonstrate that the structure of the interstellar medium cannot be considered in isolation. Instead, its formation and evolution are controlled by nested, interdependent flows of matter covering many orders of magnitude in spatial scale.
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| 2. |
- Svoboda, B. E., et al.
(författare)
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THE BOLOCAM GALACTIC PLANE SURVEY. XIV. PHYSICAL PROPERTIES of MASSIVE STARLESS and STAR-FORMING CLUMPS
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 822:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We sort 4683 molecular clouds between 10° < ℓ < 65° from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey based on observational diagnostics of star formation activity: compact 70 μm sources, mid-IR color-selected YSOs, H2O and CH3OH masers, and UCH ii regions. We also present a combined NH3-derived gas kinetic temperature and H2O maser catalog for 1788 clumps from our own GBT 100 m observations and from the literature. We identify a subsample of 2223 (47.5%) starless clump candidates (SCCs), the largest and most robust sample identified from a blind survey to date. Distributions of flux density, flux concentration, solid angle, kinetic temperature, column density, radius, and mass show strong (>1 dex) progressions when sorted by star formation indicator. The median SCC is marginally subvirial (α ∼ 0.7) with >75% of clumps with known distance being gravitationally bound (α < 2). These samples show a statistically significant increase in the median clump mass of ΔM ∼ 170-370 M o from the starless candidates to clumps associated with protostars. This trend could be due to (i) mass growth of the clumps at M o Myr-1 for an average freefall 0.8 Myr timescale, (ii) a systematic factor of two increase in dust opacity from starless to protostellar phases, and/or (iii) a variation in the ratio of starless to protostellar clump lifetime that scales as ∼M -0.4. By comparing to the observed number of CH3OH maser containing clumps, we estimate the phase lifetime of massive (M > 103 M o) starless clumps to be 0.37 ± 0.08 Myr (M/103 M o)-1; the majority (M < 450 M o) have phase lifetimes longer than their average freefall time. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
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