NASA Astronomy Research 2013-14 search for YSOs

Co-Investigators and Educators:

Chelen H. Johnson, Breck School, Golden Valley, Mn

Marcella Linahan, Carmel Catholic High School, Mundelein, Il

Jacqueline Barge, Walter Payton College Prep High School, Chicago, IL

Support Scientist: Dr. Luisa Rebull, Spitzer Science Center, Caltech, Pasadena, CA rebull@ipac.caltech.edu

Abstract

All stars originate from clouds of interstellar gas, but the mechanism responsible for formation can vary dramatically depending on the cloud and its environment. For example, if a cloud is massive enough that the gas pressure can no longer support it, gravitational collapse will occur without any external help. In triggered star formation, however, the collapse of a cloud is initiated by external pressure from a nearby star, supernova, or even collision with another cloud. When the external pressure is a shock or ionization front, it pushes away the lower density material faster than the higher density core material. When the external source is bright stars, it can illuminate the rims of the cloud. Energy from nearby stars not only causes bright rimmed clouds (BRC) to be visible at optical wavelengths, but may also provide an impetus for triggered star formation. We propose to use infrared excess to search for candidate young stellar objects (YSOs) using newly released Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) data in the area known as the Scorpius-Centaurus (ScoCen) region, the nearest region of star formation to Earth. We will also process and analyze Spitzer data found for this region. Based upon our analysis, and in combination with existing data in the literature, we propose to look at the properties of previously identified YSOs.

1. Science Background and Context: BRCs and YSOs Enormous clouds of gas and dust serve as the birthing places of stars in galaxies throughout our Universe, including the origin of our own star and Solar System. Studying these clouds becomes important in the quest to answer the question of why certain stars form planets, and why others don’t. Since it isn’t possible to watch one star’s full evolution from its beginning to its end or even its evolution from its beginning to a main sequence star with planets, it is desirable to identify as many young stars as possible and study their conditions and properties in an effort to constrain and understand the evolution of stars in general. While the exact mechanisms of star birth and evolution are not completely understood, it is believed that stars are conceived either through collapse on their own due to self-gravity, bringing together large enough masses to result in fusion, or they are more dramatically triggered via outside influences such as radiation-driven implosions (RDI) (Sugitani et al. 1991).

Star formation can occur in regions of dense gas and dust called cold dark nebulae. The temperatures of these nebulae are approximately 10 K to 100 K (Maoz 2007). The low kinetic energy of the gas and dust particles allows them to form clumps which gradually increase in size. This mass increase causes an increase in gravitational attraction, which in turn causes more mass to fall on the clump, eventually forming a protostar. This process could be occurring in multiple regions in the dust cloud, at various stages and rates, producing from one to hundreds of thousands of protostars, depending on the size and mass of the dust cloud. This process could be triggered, or accelerated, by the presence of a nearby bright star.

Bright rimmed clouds (BRCs) are a type of cold dark nebula with illuminated “bright rims” that can be seen at optical wavelengths due to the influence of energy from nearby massive stars. They consist of a denser head that appears with a bright rim and less dense tail region (Sugitani et al. 1991). They are associated with HII regions that are approximately 106 yrs old (Sugitani et al. 1991). BRCs may have been dense regions in a larger molecular cloud that were revealed and disturbed by UV radiation emitted from O or B type stars (Sugitani et al. 1991). While BRCs are considered densely packed with dust in the astronomical sense, Maoz presents a comparison that these clouds, “are many orders of magnitude lower than the density of the best vacua achievable in the laboratory” (Maoz 2007 pg. 114). The gas and dust are excited by the UV radiation emitted from O or B type stars associated with the dust cloud (Sugitani et al. 1991). Star formation is most likely triggered by the UV radiation and strong stellar winds from the associated O and B type stars which compress and ionize the material.

BRCs also provide a glimpse of star formation at different stages. Young stars are placed into groups on the basis of the slope of their spectral energy distribution (SED). SEDs are a representation of the amount of energy being emitted by the stars as a function of different wavelengths. YSOs tend to deviate from the typical black body curve on the longer wavelength (cooler) end of the curve due to infrared emissions of surrounding (circumstellar) dust. The infrared excess is the difference between the energy of the dust surrounding the star and the energy of the young star. On the basis of the SED slope between 2 and 24 microns, the stellar evolution of YSOs can be categorized in one of the phases of stellar formation; that is: Class 0, Class I, Flat, Class II and Class III protostars. Larger slopes suggest a larger infrared excess, e.g., more infrared than would be expected from an unadorned photosphere (plain star) of comparable temperature. The largest IR excesses are found in the most embedded (presumably youngest) Class 0 protostars, which lie deep within their cocoon of dust and gas. The next less embedded stages are Class I with a positive SED slope, followed by the Flat class with a relatively flat slope. The amount of circumstellar dust continues to decrease around Class II and Class III objects, which have increasingly negative SED slopes. The IR excess becomes less prominent as stars move through Class I, flat, II, and III. The amount of IR excess may be tied to age, and in the case of the BRCs, where star formation may be triggered, it could also be related to the (projected) location of the YSOs. There is some evidence (Ogura et al. 2002) that the youngest stars that are very bright in IR are typically located near the head of the cloud, and bluer, older stars are located closer to the O or B type star. This suggests an evolutionary transition in the cloud known as small-scale sequential star formation (Ogura et al. 2002). This research will look for such a correlation. However, with such a small sample size of stars, it may be that no definite conclusions can be made.

2. This study The goal of this study is to use apparent infrared (IR) excesses to identify new young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Scorpius Centaurus complex, and to compare these results to previously identified young stellar objects in these regions. Because there have been several prior studies in each of these regions, we will use previously identified YSOs in the literature. We will compare the data from WISE to the existing Spitzer Space Telescope data in the (small) areas of space that the data overlap. The data comparison in these overlapping regions will allow us to re-discover existing YSOs, as well as add points to the SED of YSO candidates.

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