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Article Dans Une Revue Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Année : 2021

On the duration of the embedded phase of star formation

Jaeyeon Kim
Mélanie Chevance
J Kruijssen
Andreas Schruba
  • Fonction : Auteur
Karin Sandstrom
Ashley Barnes
Frank Bigiel
Guillermo Blanc
Yixian Cao
Daniel Dale
Christopher Faesi
Simon Glover
Kathryn Grasha
Brent Groves
Cinthya Herrera
Ralf Klessen
Kathryn Kreckel
Janice Lee
Adam Leroy
Miguel Querejeta
Eva Schinnerer
Jiayi Sun
Antonio Usero
Jacob Ward
Thomas Williams

Résumé

Feedback from massive stars plays a key role in molecular cloud evolution. After the onset of star formation, the young stellar population is exposed by photoionization, winds, supernovae, and radiation pressure from massive stars. Recent observations of nearby galaxies have provided the evolutionary timeline between molecular clouds and exposed young stars, but the duration of the embedded phase of massive star formation is still ill-constrained. We measure how long massive stellar populations remain embedded within their natal cloud, by applying a statistical method to six nearby galaxies at $20{-}100~\mbox{${\rm ~pc}$}$ resolution, using CO, Spitzer 24$\rm \, \mu m$, and H α emission as tracers of molecular clouds, embedded star formation, and exposed star formation, respectively. We find that the embedded phase (with CO and 24$\rm \, \mu m$ emission) lasts for 2−7 Myr and constitutes $17{-}47{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the cloud lifetime. During approximately the first half of this phase, the region is invisible in H α, making it heavily obscured. For the second half of this phase, the region also emits in H α and is partially exposed. Once the cloud has been dispersed by feedback, 24$\rm \, \mu m$ emission no longer traces ongoing star formation, but remains detectable for another 2−9 Myr through the emission from ambient CO-dark gas, tracing star formation that recently ended. The short duration of massive star formation suggests that pre-supernova feedback (photoionization and winds) is important in disrupting molecular clouds. The measured time-scales do not show significant correlations with environmental properties (e.g. metallicity). Future JWST observations will enable these measurements routinely across the nearby galaxy population.
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Dates et versions

hal-03482867 , version 1 (16-08-2022)

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Jaeyeon Kim, Mélanie Chevance, J Kruijssen, Andreas Schruba, Karin Sandstrom, et al.. On the duration of the embedded phase of star formation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2021, 504 (1), pp.487-509. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stab878⟩. ⟨hal-03482867⟩
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