1. Star formation in the filament of S254-S258 OB complex: a cluster in the process of making
- Author
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Samal, M. R., Ojha, D. K., Jose, J., Zavagno, Annie, Takahashi, S., Neichel, B., Kim, J. S., Chauhan, N., Pandey, A. K., Zinchenko, I., Tamura, M., Ghosh, S. K., Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics [Beijing] (KIAA-PKU), Peking University [Beijing], Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO), European Southern Observatory (ESO)-National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Institute of Astronomy [Taiwan] (IANCU), National Central University [Taiwan] (NCU), Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Institute of Applied Physics of RAS, Russian Academy of Sciences [Moscow] (RAS), National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), and National Centre for Radio Astrophysics [Pune] (NCRA)
- Subjects
filament ,Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) ,infrared ,individual: S254-S258 complex ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,[PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph] ,Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,young stellar objects ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics ,star formation ,dark cloud - Abstract
Infrared Dark Clouds are ideal laboratories to study the initial processes of high-mass star and star cluster formation. We investigated star formation activity of an unexplored filamentary dark cloud (~5.7pc x 1.9pc), which itself is part of a large filament (~20pc) located in the S254-S258 OB complex at a distance of 2.5kpc. Using MIPS Spitzer 24 micron data, we uncover 49 sources with SNR greater than 5. We identified 45 sources as candidate YSOs of Class I, Flat-spectrum & Class II nature. Additional 17 candidate YSOs (9 Class I & 8 Class II) are also identified using JHK and WISE photometry. We find that the protostar to Class II sources ratio (~2) and the protostar fraction (~70%) of the region are high. When the protostar fraction compared to other young clusters, it suggests that the star formation in the dark cloud was possibly started only 1 Myr ago. Combining the NIR photometry of the YSO candidates with the theoretical evolutionary models, we infer that most of the candidate YSOs formed in the dark cloud are low-mass (, 14 pages, 9 figures, Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Published
- 2015