DIFFERENT EVOLUTIONARY STAGES IN THE MASSIVE STAR-FORMING REGION W3 MAIN COMPLEX
- Purple Mountain Observatory and Key Laboratory for Radio Astronomy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008 (China)
- Max-Plank-Institute for Astronomy, Koenigstuhl 17, Heidelberg 69117 (Germany)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19 (Chile)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 355, STN CSC, Victoria, BC V8W 3P6 (Canada)
We observed three high-mass star-forming regions in the W3 high-mass star formation complex with the Submillimeter Array and IRAM 30 m telescope. These regions, i.e., W3 SMS1 (W3 IRS5), SMS2 (W3 IRS4) and SMS3, are in different evolutionary stages and are located within the same large-scale environment, which allows us to study rotation and outflows as well as chemical properties in an evolutionary sense. While we find multiple millimeter continuum sources toward all regions, these three subregions exhibit different dynamical and chemical properties, which indicate that they are in different evolutionary stages. Even within each subregion, massive cores of different ages are found, e.g., in SMS2, sub-sources from the most evolved ultracompact H II region to potential starless cores exist within 30,000 AU of each other. Outflows and rotational structures are found in SMS1 and SMS2. Evidence for interactions between the molecular cloud and the H II regions is found in the {sup 13}CO channel maps, which may indicate triggered star formation.
- OSTI ID:
- 22039257
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 754, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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