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Title: THE RED MSX SOURCE SURVEY: THE MASSIVE YOUNG STELLAR POPULATION OF OUR GALAXY

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
; ; ;  [1];  [2]; ;  [3];  [4]
  1. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT (United Kingdom)
  2. Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, Bonn (Germany)
  3. Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 5RF (United Kingdom)
  4. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)

We present the Red MSX Source survey, the largest statistically selected catalog of young massive protostars and H II regions to date. We outline the construction of the catalog using mid- and near-infrared color selection. We also discuss the detailed follow up work at other wavelengths, including higher spatial resolution data in the infrared. We show that within the adopted selection bounds we are more than 90% complete for the massive protostellar population, with a positional accuracy of the exciting source of better than 2 arcsec. We briefly summarize some of the results that can be obtained from studying the properties of the objects in the catalog as a whole; we find evidence that the most massive stars form: (1) preferentially nearer the Galactic center than the anti-center; (2) in the most heavily reddened environments, suggestive of high accretion rates; and (3) from the most massive cloud cores.

OSTI ID:
22273346
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Vol. 208, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0067-0049
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English