J/A+A/462/L17 Dense cores in interstellar molecular clouds (Alves+, 2007)
The mass function of dense molecular cores and the origin of the IMF.
Alves J., Lombardi M., Lada C.
<Astron. Astrophys. 462, L17 (2007)>
=2007A&A...462L..17A 2007A&A...462L..17A
ADC_Keywords: Molecular clouds ; Extinction
Keywords: ISM: structure - dust, extinction - stars: formation -
stars: luminosity function, mass function - ISM: evolution -
ISM: clouds
Abstract:
Stars form in the cold dense cores of interstellar molecular clouds
and the detailed knowledge of the spectrum of masses of such cores is
clearly a key for the understanding of the origin of the IMF. To date,
observations have presented somewhat contradictory evidence relating
to this issue.
In this paper we propose to derive the mass function of a complete
sample of dense molecular cores in a single cloud employing a robust
method that uses uses extinction of background starlight to measure
core masses and enables the reliable extension of such measurements to
lower masses than previously possible. We use a map of near-infrared
extinction in the nearby Pipe dark cloud to identify the population of
dense cores in the cloud and measure their masses.
Description:
We identify 159 dense cores and construct the mass function for this
population.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 35 159 Core positions
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See also:
J/A+AS/119/111 : Molecular abundances in dense interstellar clouds (Lee+ 1996)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 3 I3 --- Seq Core number
5- 10 F6.2 deg GLON Galactic Longitude
12- 17 F6.2 deg GLAT Galactic Latitude
19- 22 F4.1 mag AVpeak Peak extinction of Av for the map
resolution (60")
24- 26 F3.1 pc Size Size (mean core diameter)
28- 31 F4.1 solMass Mass Mass of the core
33- 35 F3.1 mag AVbckg Core background of Av
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Acknowledgements:
Joao Alves, jalves(at)caha.es
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 07-Dec-2006