The Mass-Size Relation from Clouds to Cores. II. Solar Neighborhood Clouds
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https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/716/1/433Metadata
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Kauffmann, Jens, Thushara Pillai, Rahul Shetty, Philip C. Myers, and Alyssa A. Goodman. 2010. The mass-size relation from clouds to cores. II. Solar neighborhood clouds. The Astrophysical Journal 716(1): 433-445.Abstract
We measure the mass and size of cloud fragments in several molecular clouds continuously over a wide range of spatial scales \((0.05 <\sim r/pc <\sim 3)\). Based on the recently developed "dendrogram-technique," this characterizes dense cores as well as the enveloping clouds. "Larson's Third Law" of constant column density, \(m(r) \alpha r^2\), is not well suited to describe the derived mass-size data. Solar neighborhood clouds not forming massive stars \((< \sim 10 M \odot\); Pipe Nebula, Taurus, Perseus, and Ophiuchus) obey \(m(r) \leq 870 M \odot (r/pc)^{1.33}\). In contrast to this, clouds forming massive stars (Orion A, G10.15 – 0.34, G11.11 – 0.12) do exceed the aforementioned relation. Thus, this limiting mass-size relation may approximate a threshold for the formation of massive stars. Across all clouds, cluster-forming cloud fragments are found to be—at given radius—more massive than fragments devoid of clusters. The cluster-bearing fragments are found to roughly obey a mass-size law \(m \ \alpha \ r^{1.27}\) (where the exponent is highly uncertain in any given cloud, but is certainly smaller than 1.5).Terms of Use
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