Search

This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of galaxies spanning a wide range in mass and environment, using deep optical/infrared spectroscopy and high-resolution imaging to understand the physical mechanisms deriving their formation and evolution. The research is structured around three primary studies. 1) I studied the metal enrichment of galaxies in protoclusters and the effect of the environment on the mass-metallicity relation (MZR). I found that massive galaxies residing in protoclusters are metal-deficient compared to galaxies in the field. This implies that primordial cold gas, channeled through cosmic filaments, dilutes the metal content of the protocluster; 2) I investigated the fraction of clumpy galaxies at 0.5< z< 3, using UVCANDELS and CANDELS imaging data to examine clump properties in star-forming galaxies. The results reveal a peak in clumpiness around cosmic noon, with a decline towards the present and a lack of environmental dependence, suggesting that internal processes predominantly drive clump formation; 3) I extended the analyses to dwarf galaxies at z ~ 0.15, establishing a robust mass-metallicity relation and confirming the fundamental metallicity relation at low masses, highlighting the nuanced interplay between star formation rate and gas-phase metallicity. I find that the intrinsic scatter in the MZR is larger for dwarf galaxies compared to normal galaxies, indicating more diverse star formation histories and/or stronger environmental effects in these systems. This work advances our understanding of galaxy evolution across cosmic time, offering new insights into the mechanisms influencing star formation and chemical enrichment and finding the complex interplay between internal dynamics and environmental factors in shaping galaxy evolution.

Most investigations of star-forming regions (SFRs) focus on their cores, where disks, jets, outflows and nebular clouds are commonplace. However, searches around the peripheries of stellar nurseries are almost non-existent, yet ought to contain additional young members, informing us about cloud dynamics and the dissolution of SFRs. “It’s a fishing trip” -- who’s going to offer that kind of observing time, right? Welcome to HYPERS*, a HST project which obtained 100 cycles of mostly optical photometry around the outskirts of SFRs by using the vacant second observing facility whilst the primary mission targeted a known nebulous region. Observations, completed in February 2022 consist of ~30 SFRs at distances 100-1000pc, size-scales 5-50 pc and populations of a few to a few thousand. Early results show: (1) dozens of emission disk candidates and a few potential jets; (2) many resolved multiple systems as close as ~0.05" that could not be detected without HST's powerful angular resolution; (3) large, previously unreported, cavities in the molecular clouds around the Eagle nebula. Our cross-match with several astronomical surveys indicates that we have lots of new stuff in there!

Brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects have photometric and spectroscopic properties similar to exoplanet orbiting stars but they are in isolation, making their characterisation easier. We present a solid spectral sequence of substellar late-M and L-type dwarf members with effective temperatures below 2000 Kelvins of five young regions and open clusters: sigma Orionis (3-8 Myr; 350 pc), Upper Scorpius (5-10 Myr; 145 pc), the Pleiades (125 Myr; 135 pc), Coma Berenices (500 Myr; 87 pc), and the Hyades (650 Myr; 47 pc). We compare their photometric and spectroscopic properties to members of young moving groups and older field L dwarfs., Most of the diagrams and results presented in this poster have been published in refereed astronomical journals (or submitted): Sigma Orionis: Zapatero Osorio et al. (2017, ApJ, 842, 65) Upper Scorpius: Lodieu et al. (2018, MNRAS, 473, 2020) Pleiades: Zapatero Osorio et al. (2018, MNRAS, 475, 139) Hyades: Perez-Garrido et al. (2017, A&A, 599, 78); Martin et al. (2018, ApJ, 856, 40); Lodieu et al. (2018, A&A, 615, 12) Coma Berenices: Olivares et al. (2023, A&A, submitted), {"references":["Zapatero Osorio et al. (2017, ApJ, 842, 65)","Lodieu et al. (2018, MNRAS, 473, 2020)","Zapatero Osorio et al. (2018, MNRAS, 475, 139)","Pérez-Garrido et al. (2017, A&A, 599, 78)","Martin et al. (2018, ApJ, 856, 40)","Lodieu et al. (2018, A&A, 615, 12)","Olivares et al. (2023, A&A, submitted)"]}

We present high resolution Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations of the protostar L1527 IRS at 7 mm, 1.3 cm, and 2 cm wavelengths. We detect the edge-on dust disk at all three wavelengths and find that it is asymmetric, with the southern side of the disk brighter than the northern side. We confirm this asymmetry through analytic modeling and also find that the disk is flared at 7 mm. We test the data against models including gap features in the intensity profile, and though we cannot rule such models out, they do not provide a statistically significant improvement in the quality of fit to the data. From these fits, we can however place constraints on allowed properties of any gaps that could be present in the true, underlying intensity profile. The physical nature of the asymmetry is difficult to associate with physical features due to the edge-on nature of the disk, but could be related to spiral arms or asymmetries seen in other imaging of more face-on disks., 20 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Tao-Chung Ching et al., We present 850 μm dust polarization observations of the massive DR21 filament from the B-fields In STar-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey, using the POL-2 polarimeter and the SCUBA-2 camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We detect ordered magnetic fields perpendicular to the parsec-scale ridge of the DR21 main filament. In the subfilaments, the magnetic fields are mainly parallel to the filamentary structures and smoothly connect to the magnetic fields of the main filament. We compare the POL-2 and Planck dust polarization observations to study the magnetic field structures of the DR21 filament on 0.1–10 pc scales. The magnetic fields revealed in the Planck data are well-aligned with those of the POL-2 data, indicating a smooth variation of magnetic fields from large to small scales. The plane-of-sky magnetic field strengths derived from angular dispersion functions of dust polarization are 0.6–1.0 mG in the DR21 filament and ∼0.1 mG in the surrounding ambient gas. The mass-to-flux ratios are found to be magnetically supercritical in the filament and slightly subcritical to nearly critical in the ambient gas. The alignment between column density structures and magnetic fields changes from random alignment in the low-density ambient gas probed by Planck to mostly perpendicular in the high-density main filament probed by James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The magnetic field structures of the DR21 filament are in agreement with MHD simulations of a strongly magnetized medium, suggesting that magnetic fields play an important role in shaping the DR21 main filament and subfilaments., This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant Nos. 11988101, U1931117, 11725313, and 12073061 and the CAS International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences grant No. 114A11KYSB20160008. T.-C.C. is funded by Chinese Academy of Sciences Taiwan Young Talent Program grant No. 2018TW2JB0002. T.-C.C. and C.E. were supported by Special Funding for Advanced Users, budgeted and administrated by Center for Astronomical Mega-Science (CAMS), Chinese Academy of Sciences. K.P. is a Royal Society University Research Fellow, supported by grant No. URF\R1\211322. D.J. is supported by the National Research Council of Canada and by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant. P.M.K. is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in Taiwan through grants 109-2112-M-001-022 and 110-2112-M-001-057. C.W.L. is supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-2019R1A2C1010851), and by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT; Project No. 2022-1-840-05). T.H. is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) through the Mid-career Research Program (2019R1A2C1087045). W.K. was supported by the NRF grant funded by the MSIT (2021R1F1A1061794). C.E. acknowledges the financial support from grant RJF/2020/000071 as a part of Ramanujan Fellowship awarded by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India. F.P. acknowledges support from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) under grant No. PID2019-105552RB-C43. M.T. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant Nos. 18H05442, 15H02063, and 22000005. J.K. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant No. 19K14775. L.F. and F.K. acknowledge the support by the MoST in Taiwan through grant 107-2119-M-001-031-MY3 and Academia Sinica through grant AS-IA-106-M03. L.F. acknowledges the support by the MoST in Taiwan through grants 111-2811-M-005-007 and 109-2112-M-005-003-MY3. C.L.H.H. acknowledges the support of the NAOJ Fellowship and JSPS KAKENHI grants 18K13586 and 20K14527. F.K. is supported by the Spanish program Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M, financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. K.Q. is partially supported by National Key R&D Program of China No. 2022YFA1603100, and acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant U1731237. S.P.L. acknowledges grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan 106-2119-M-007-021-MY3 and 109-2112-M-007-010-MY3. Y.D. acknowledges the support of JSPS KAKENHI grants 25247016 and 18H01250. Y.S.D. is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China for grant No. 2022YFA1605300, and NSFC grants Nos. 12273051, 11933003.

Context. The chemistry of sulphur-bearing species in the interstellar medium remains poorly understood, but might play a key role in the chemical evolution of star-forming regions. Aims. Coupling laboratory experiments to observations of sulphur-bearing species in different parts of star-forming regions, we aim to understand the chemical behavior of the sulphur species in cold and warm regions of protostars, and we ultimately hope to connect them. Methods. We performed laboratory experiments in which we tested the reactivity of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) on a cold substrate with hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide (CO) under different physical conditions that allowed us to determine the products from sulphur reactions using a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The laboratory experiments were complemented by observations. We observed two luminous binary sources in the Cygnus-X star-forming complex, Cygnus X-N30 and N12, covering a frequency range of 329–361 GHz at a spatial resolution of 1′′5 with the SubMillimeter Array (SMA). This study was complemented by a 3 mm line survey of Cygnus X-N12 covering specific frequency windows in the frequency ranges 72.0–79.8 GHz at a spatial resolution of 34′′0–30′′0 and 84.2–115.5 GHz at a spatial resolution of 29′′0–21′′0, with the IRAM-30 m single-dish telescope. Column densities and excitation temperatures were derived under the local thermodynamic equilibrium approximation. Results. We find that OCS is a direct product from H2S reacting with CO and H under cold temperatures (T < 100 K) from laboratory experiments. OCS is therefore found to be an important solid-state S-reservoir. We identify several S-species in the cold envelope of Cyg X-N12, principally organo-sulphurs (H2CS, CS, OCS, CCS, C3S, CH3SH, and HSCN). For the hot cores of Cyg X-N12 and N30, only OCS, CS and H2CS were detected. We found a difference in the S-diversity between the hot core and the cold envelope of N12, which is likely due to the sensitivity of the observations toward the hot core of N12. Moreover, based on the hot core analysis of N30, the difference in S-diversity is likely driven by chemical processes rather than the low sensitivity of the observations. Furthermore, we found that the column density ratio of NCS/NSO is also an indicator of the warm (NCS/NSO > 1), cold (NCS/NSO < 1) chemistries within the same source. The line survey and molecular abundances inferred for the sulphur species are similar for protostars N30 and N12 and depends on the protostellar component targeted (i.e., envelope or hot core) rather than on the source itself. However, the spatial distribution of emission toward Cyg X-N30 shows differences compared to N12: toward N12, all molecular emission peaks on the two continuum sources, whereas emission is spatially distributed and shows variations within molecular families (N, O, and C families) toward N30. Moreover, this spatial distribution of all the identified S-species is offset from the N30 continuum peaks. The sulphur-bearing molecules are therefore good tracers to connect the hot and cold chemistry and to provide insight into the type of object that is observed.

We aim to characterize a diverse selection of dense, potentially star-forming cores, clumps, and clouds within the Milky Way in terms of their dust emission and SF activity. We studied 53 fields that have been observed in the JCMT SCUBA-2 continuum survey SCOPE and have been mapped with Herschel. We estimated dust properties by fitting Herschel observations with modified blackbody functions, studied the relationship between dust temperature and dust opacity spectral index $\beta$, and estimated column densities. We extracted clumps from the SCUBA-2 850 $\mu$m maps with the FellWalker algorithm and examined their masses and sizes. Clumps are associated with young stellar objects found in several catalogs. We estimated the gravitational stability of the clumps with virial analysis. The clumps are categorized as unbound starless, prestellar, or protostellar. We find 529 dense clumps, typically with high column densities from (0.3-4.8)$\times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$, with a mean of (1.5$\pm$0.04)$\times10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$, low temperatures ($T\sim $10-20 K), and estimated submillimeter $\beta$ =1.7$\pm$0.1. We detect a slight increase in opacity spectral index toward millimeter wavelengths. Masses of the sources range from 0.04 $M_\odot$ to 4259 $M_\odot$. Mass, linear size, and temperature are correlated with distance. Furthermore, the estimated gravitational stability is dependent on distance, and more distant clumps appear more virially bound. Finally, we present a catalog of properties of the clumps.Our sources present a large array of SF regions, from high-latitude, nearby diffuse clouds to large SF complexes near the Galactic center. Analysis of these regions will continue with the addition of molecular line data, which will allow us to study the densest regions of the clumps in more detail., Comment: 60 pages (article 18 pages), 73 figures To be published in A&A

A full understanding of high-mass star formation requires the study of one of the most elusive components of the energy balance in the interstellar medium: magnetic fields. We report Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 1.2 mm, high-resolution (700 au) dust polarization and molecular line observations of the rotating hot molecular core embedded in the high-mass star-forming region IRAS 18089-1732. The dust continuum emission and magnetic field morphology present spiral-like features resembling a whirlpool. The velocity field traced by the H13CO+ (J = 3-2) transition line reveals a complex structure with spiral filaments that are likely infalling and rotating, dragging the field with them. We have modeled the magnetic field and find that the best model corresponds to a weakly magnetized core with a mass-to-magnetic-flux ratio (λ) of 8.38. The modeled magnetic field is dominated by a poloidal component, but with an important contribution from the toroidal component that has a magnitude of 30% of the poloidal component. Using the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method, we estimate a magnetic field strength of 3.5 mG. At the spatial scales accessible to ALMA, an analysis of the energy balance of the system indicates that gravity overwhelms turbulence, rotation, and the magnetic field. We show that high-mass star formation can occur in weakly magnetized environments, with gravity taking the dominant role., P.S. and B.W. were partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI number 18H01259) of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). J.M.G. is supported by the Spanish grant AYA2017-84390-C2-R (AEI/FEDER, UE). C.L.H.H. acknowledges the support of the NAOJ Fellowship and JSPS KAKENHI grants 18K13586 and 20K14527. J.M.J.'s research was conducted in part at the SOFIA Science Center, which is operated by the Universities Space Research Association under contract NNA17BF53C with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. K.T. was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant No. 20H05645. Data analysis was in part carried out on the Multi-wavelength Data Analysis System operated by the Astronomy Data Center (ADC), National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2017.1.00101.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.

We unveil the stellar wind driven shell of the luminous massive star-forming region of RCW 49 using SOFIA FEEDBACK observations of the [CII] 158 $\mu$m line. The complementary dataset of the $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO J = 3 - 2 transitions is observed by the APEX telescope and probes the dense gas toward RCW 49. Using the spatial and spectral resolution provided by the SOFIA and APEX telescopes, we disentangle the shell from a complex set of individual components of gas centered around RCW 49. We find that the shell of radius ~ 6 pc is expanding at a velocity of 13 km s$^{-1}$ toward the observer. Comparing our observed data with the ancillary data at X-Ray, infrared, sub-millimeter and radio wavelengths, we investigate the morphology of the region. The shell has a well defined eastern arc, while the western side is blown open and is venting plasma further into the west. Though the stellar cluster, which is ~ 2 Myr old gave rise to the shell, it only gained momentum relatively recently as we calculate the shell's expansion lifetime ~ 0.27 Myr, making the Wolf-Rayet star WR20a a likely candidate responsible for the shell's re-acceleration., Comment: 31 pages, 17 figures

Prestellar cores are self-gravitating dense and cold structures within molecular clouds where future stars are born. They are expected, at the stage of transitioning to the protostellar phase, to harbor centrally concentrated dense (sub)structures that will seed the formation of a new star or the binary/multiple stellar systems. Characterizing this critical stage of evolution is key to our understanding of star formation. In this work, we report the detection of high-density (sub)structures on the thousand-astronomical-unit (au) scale in a sample of dense prestellar cores. Through our recent ALMA observations toward the Orion Planck Galactic Cold Clumps, we have found five extremely dense prestellar cores, which have centrally concentrated regions of ∼2000 au in size, and several 107 cm-3 in average density. Masses of these centrally dense regions are in the range of 0.30 to 6.89M⊙. For the first time, our higher resolution observations (0.8' ∼ 320 au) further reveal that one of the cores shows clear signatures of fragmentation; such individual substructures/fragments have sizes of 800-1700 au, masses of 0.08 to 0.84M⊙, densities of 2 - 8 × 107 cm-3, and separations of ∼1200 au. The substructures are massive enough (≳0.1M⊙) to form young stellar objects and are likely examples of the earliest stage of stellar embryos that can lead to widely (∼1200 au) separated multiple systems., L. acknowledges the support from the international partnership program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences through grant No.114231KYSB20200009, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) through grant NSFC No.12073061, and Shanghai Pujiang Program 20PJ1415500. N.H. acknowledges MoST 108-2112-M-001-017 and MoST 109-2112-M-001-023 grants. G.G. acknowledges support from ANID project AFB 170002. L.B. acknowledges support from ANID project AFB-170002. S.L.Q. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant No. U1631237. D.J. is supported by NRC Canada and by an NSERC Discovery Grant. V.M.P. acknowledges support by the Spanish MINECO under project AYA2017-88754-P, and financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the “Unit of Excellence María de Maeztu 2020-2023” award to the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (CEX2019-000918-M). C.W.L. is supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-2019R1A2C1010851). A.S. acknowledges financial support from the NSF through grant AST-1715876. The research was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. D. L. acknowledges support from NSFC No. 11911530226 and 11725313. K.T. was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant No. 20H05645. J.H. thanks the NSFC grant No. 11873086 and Yunnan Province of China (No. 2017HC018).This work is sponsored (in part) by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), through a grant to the CAS South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA) in Santiago, Chile.

We analyze surveys of molecular cloud structures defined by tracers ranging from CO $J = 1-0$ through $^{13}$CO $J = 1-0$ to dust emission together with NH$_3$ data. The mean value of the virial parameter and the fraction of mass in bound structures depends on the method used to identify structures. Generally, the virial parameter decreases and the fraction of mass in bound structures increases with the effective density of the tracer, the surface density and mass of the structures, and the distance from the center of a galaxy. For the most complete surveys of structures in the Galaxy defined by CO $J = 1-0$, the fraction of mass that is in bound structures is 0.19. For catalogs of other galaxies based on CO $J = 2-1$, the fraction is 0.35. These results offer substantial alleviation of the fundamental problem of slow star formation. If only clouds found to be bound are counted and they are assumed to collapse in a free-fall time at their mean cloud density, the sum over all clouds in a complete survey of the Galaxy yields a predicted star formation rate of 46 solar masses per year, a factor of 6.5 less than if all clouds are bound., Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, accepted to ApJ

Measurement of magnetic field strengths in a molecular cloud is essential for determining the criticality of magnetic support against gravitational collapse. In this paper, as part of the JCMT BISTRO survey, we suggest a new application of the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi (DCF) method to estimate the distribution of magnetic field strengths in the OMC-1 region. We use observations of dust polarization emission at 450 $\mu$m and 850 $\mu$m, and C$^{18}$O (3-2) spectral line data obtained with the JCMT. We estimate the volume density, the velocity dispersion and the polarization angle dispersion in a box, 40$''$ $\times$ 40$''$ (5$\times$5 pixels), which moves over the OMC-1 region. By substituting three quantities in each box to the DCF method, we get magnetic field strengths over the OMC-1 region. We note that there are very large uncertainties in inferred field strengths, as discussed in detail in this paper. The field strengths vary from 0.8 to 26.4 mG and their mean value is about 6 mG. Additionally, we obtain maps of the mass-to-flux ratio in units of a critical value and the Alfv$\acute{e}$n mach number. The central parts of the BN-KL and South (S) clumps in the OMC-1 region are magnetically supercritical, so the magnetic field cannot support the clumps against gravitational collapse. However, the outer parts of the region are magnetically subcritical. The mean Alfv$\acute{e}$n mach number is about 0.4 over the region, which implies that the magnetic pressure exceeds the turbulent pressure in the OMC 1 region., Comment: 28 pages