Using data from the SCUBA Legacy Catalogue (850 µm) and Spitzer (3.6 - 70 µm), we explore dense cores in the Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, Serpens, and Orion molecular clouds. In particular, we focus on identifying which cores host young stars
while others remain starless. Understanding the nature of star formation and the
influence of local environment will give us insight into several key properties, such
as the origin of stellar mass. Here, we present starless and protostellar core mass
functions (CMFs) for the five clouds. We develop a new method to discriminate
starless from protostellar cores, using Spitzer colours and positions. We found best-fit slopes to the high-mass end of
−1.26±0.20, −1.22±0.06, −0.95±0.20, and −1.85±0.53 for Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, and Orion, respectively. We were unable to fit a slope to our fifth cloud, Serpens. Broadly, these slopes are consistent with the −1.35 power-law seen in the Salpeter IMF, but suggest some differences. We examined a variety of trends between these CMF shapes and their parent cloud properties, potentially finding a correlation between the high-mass slope and temperature. We also attempt
to predict what future surveys with SCUBA-2 will detect in each of our clouds.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1611 |
| Date | 26 August 2009 |
| Creators | Sadavoy, Sarah I. |
| Contributors | Di Francesco, James, VandenBerg, Don A. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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