Tuesday, January 15, 2013

1301.3055 (C. R. Kerton et al.)

Massive Star Formation at the Periphery of the Evolved Giant HII Region W 39    [PDF]

C. R. Kerton, K. Arvidsson, M. J. Alexander
We present the first detailed study of the large, ~30 pc diameter, inner-Galaxy HII region W 39. Radio recombination line observations combined with HI absorption spectra and Galactic rotation models show that the region lies at V(LSR) = +65.4+/-0.5 km/s corresponding to a near kinematic distance of 4.5+/-0.2 kpc. Analysis of radio continuum emission shows that the HII region is being powered by a cluster of OB stars with a combined hydrogen-ionizing luminosity of log(Q) >=50, and that there are three compact HII regions located on the periphery of W 39, each with log(Q)~48.5 (single O7 - O9 V star equivalent). In the infrared, W 39 has a hierarchical bubble morphology, and is a likely site of sequential star formation involving massive stars. Kinematic models of the expansion of W 39 yield timescales of order Myr consistent with a scenario where the formation of the smaller HII regions has been triggered by the expansion of W 39. Using Spitzer GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL data we show that star-formation activity is not distributed uniformly around the periphery of W 39 but is concentrated in two areas that include the compact HII regions as well as a number of intermediate-mass Class I and Class II YSOs.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.3055

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