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Williams, BA, Walker, DL, Longmore, SN, Barnes, AT, Battersby, C, Garay, G, Ginsburg, A, Gomez, L, Henshaw, JD, Ho, LC, Kruijssen, JMD, Lu, X, Mills, EAC, Petkova, MA and Zhang, Q (2022) The initial conditions for young massive cluster formation in the Galactic Centre: convergence of large-scale gas flows. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 514 (1). pp. 578-595. ISSN 0035-8711
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Abstract
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are compact (1 pc), high-mass
(>104 Mo) stellar systems of significant scientific interest. Due to their rarity and rapid formation, we have very few examples of YMC
progenitor gas clouds before star formation has begun. As a result, the initial conditions required for YMC formation are uncertain. We present high-resolution(0.13^,1000 au) ALMA observations and Mopra single-dishdata, showing that Galactic Centre dust ridge `Cloud d' (G0.412+0.052, mass$\sim 7.6 times 10^4 Mo, radius$\sim 3.2$ pc) has the potential to become an Arches-like YMC (104$ Mo, r 1 pc), but is not yet forming stars. This would mean it is the youngest known pre-star forming massive cluster and therefore could be an ideal laboratory for studying the initial conditions of YMC formation. We find 96 sources in the dust continuum, with masses 3 Mo and radii of 103 au. The source masses and separations are more consistent with thermal rather than turbulent fragmentation. It is not possible to unambiguously determine the dynamical state of most of the sources, as the uncertainty on virial parameter estimates is large. We find evidence for large-scale (1 pc) converging gas flows,which could cause the cloud to grow rapidly, gaining 104 Mo within 105 yr. The highest density gas is found at the convergent point of the large-scale flows. We expect this cloud to form many high-mass stars, but find no high-mass starless cores. If the sources represent the initial conditions for star formation, the resulting IMF will be bottom-heavy.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2022 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | astro-ph.GA; astro-ph.GA; astro-ph.SR |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Related URLs: | |
| SWORD Depositor: | A Symplectic |
| Date Deposited: | 23 May 2022 10:47 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Jun 2022 13:30 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1093/mnras/stac1378 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16904 |
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