Molecular Line Observations of Infrared Dark Clouds II: Physical Conditions

Abstract

Using a source selection biased towards high mass star forming regions, we used a Large Velocity Gradient (LVG) code to calculate the H2 densities and CS column densities for a sample of Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) 8 micron infrared dark cores. Our average H2 density and CS column density were 1.14 x 10e6 cm-3 and 1.21 x 10e13 cm-2 respectively. In addition, we have calculated the Jeans mass and Virial mass for each core to get a better understanding of their gravitational stability. We found that core masses calculated from observations of N2H+ J = 1-0 and C18O J = 1-0 by Ragan et al. 2006 (Paper 1) were sufficient for collapse, though most regions are likely to form protoclusters. We have explored the star-forming properties of the molecular gas within our sample and find some diversity which extends the range of infrared dark clouds from very the massive clouds that will create large clusters, to clouds that are similar to some of our local counterparts (e.g. Serpens, Ophiuchus).

18 pages, 4 figures accepted to the Astrophysical Journal

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