Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 372, Issue 3, Pages L41-L44Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20010543
Keywords
ISM : clouds; ISM : structure; dust; stars : formation; stars : initial mass function; submillimeter
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We report the results of a submillimeter dust continuum survey of the protoclusters NGC 2068 and NGC 2071 in Orion B carried out at 850 mum and 450 mum with SCUBA on JCMT. The mapped region is similar to 32' x 18' in size (similar to4 pc x 2 pc) and consists of filamentary dense cores which break up into small-scale (similar to5 000 AU) fragments, including 70 starless condensations and 5 circumstellar envelopes/disks. The starless condensations, seen on the same spatial scales as protostellar envelopes, are likely to be gravitationally bound and pre-stellar in nature. Their mass spectrum, ranging from similar to0.3 M-circle dot to similar to5 M-circle dot, is reminiscent of the stellar initial mass function (IMF). Their mass-size relation suggests that they originate from gravitationally-driven fragmentation. We thus argue that pre-collapse cloud fragmentation plays a major role in shaping the IMF.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available