The High-mass Protostellar Population of a Massive Infrared Dark Cloud

July 2020 • 2020ApJ...897..136M

Authors • Moser, Emily • Liu, Mengyao • Tan, Jonathan C. • Lim, Wanggi • Zhang, Yichen • Farias, Juan Pablo

Abstract • We conduct a census of the high-mass protostellar population of the ∼70,000 M_⊙ infrared dark cloud (IRDC) G028.37+00.07, identifying 35 sources based on their 70 μm emission, as reported in the Herschel Hi-GAL catalog of Molinari et al. We perform aperture photometry to construct spectral energy distributions, which are then fit with the massive protostar models of Zhang & Tan. We find that the sources span a range of isotropic luminosities from ∼20 to 4500 L_⊙. The most luminous sources are predicted to have current protostellar masses of m_* ∼ 10 M_⊙ forming from cores of mass M_c ∼ 40 to 400 M_⊙. The least luminous sources in our sample are predicted to be protostars with masses as low as ∼0.5 M_⊙ forming from cores with M_c ∼ 10 M_⊙, which are the minimum values explored in the protostellar model grid. The detected protostellar population has a total estimated protostellar mass of M_* ∼ 100 M_⊙. Allowing for completeness corrections, which are constrained by comparison with an ALMA study in part of the cloud, we estimate a star formation efficiency per freefall time of ∼3% in the IRDC. Finally, analyzing the spatial distribution of the sources, we find relatively low degrees of central concentration of the protostars. The protostars, including the most massive ones, do not appear to be especially centrally concentrated in the protocluster as defined by the IRDC boundary.

Links

View on ADS

IPAC Authors
(alphabetical)

Wanggi Lim

Assistant Scientist