Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 712, Issue 2, Pages 1137-1146Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/712/2/1137
Keywords
ISM: clouds; methods: data analysis; stars: formation
Categories
Funding
- Harvard Interfaculty Initiative
- National Science Foundation [AST-0908159]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [0908159] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We use a new contour-based map analysis technique to measure the mass and size of molecular cloud fragments continuously over a wide range of spatial scales (0.05 <= r/pc <= 10), i.e., from the scale of dense cores to those of entire clouds. The present paper presents the method via a detailed exploration of the Perseus molecular cloud. Dust extinction and emission data are combined to yield reliable scale-dependent measurements of mass. This scale-independent analysis approach is useful for several reasons. First, it provides a more comprehensive characterization of a map (i.e., not biased toward a particular spatial scale). Such a lack of bias is extremely useful for the joint analysis of many data sets taken with different spatial resolution. This includes comparisons between different cloud complexes. Second, the multi-scale mass-size data constitute a unique resource to derive slopes of mass-size laws (via power-law fits). Such slopes provide singular constraints on large-scale density gradients in clouds.
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