The RMS Survey: Galactic distribution of massive star formation

Abstract

Abridged: We have used the well-selected sample of ~1750 embedded, young, massive stars identified by the RMS survey to investigate the Galactic distribution of recent massive star formation. We describe the various methods used to assign distances extracted from the literature, and solve the distance ambiguities towards ~200 sources located within the Solar circle using archival HI data. These distances are used to calculate bolometric luminosities and estimate the survey completeness (~2x10^4 lsun). In total, we calculate the distance and luminosity of ~1650 sources, one third of which are above the survey's completeness threshold. Examination of the sample's longitude, latitude, radial velocities and mid-infrared images has identified ~120 small groups of sources, many of which are associated with well known star formation complexes, such as W43, W49 and W51. We compare the positional distribution of the sample with the expected locations of the spiral arms, assuming a model of the Galaxy consisting of four gaseous arms. The distribution of young massive stars in the Milky Way is spatially correlated with the spiral arms, with strong peaks in the source position and luminosity distributions at the arms' Galactocentric radii. The overall source and luminosity surface densities are both well correlated with the surface density of the molecular gas, which suggests that the massive star formation rate per unit molecular mass is approximately constant across the Galaxy. We estimate the total luminosity of the embedded massive star population to be ~0.76x10^8 lsun, 30% of which is associated with the ten most active star forming complexes. We measure the scale height as a function of Galactocentric distance and find that it increases only modestly from ~20-30 pc between 4 and 8 kpc, but much more rapidly at larger distances.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Paper consists of 17 pages, four table and 11 figures. The full versions of Tables 1,2 and 3 and Figures 1 and 4 will only be available from CDS

References in corpus (14)

• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• Trigonometric Parallaxes of Massive Star Forming Regions: VI. Galactic Structure, Fundamental Parameters and Non-Circular Motions
• The VLA Galactic Plane Survey
• The Red MSX Source Survey: the Massive Young Stellar Population of our Galaxy
• Kinematic Distances to Molecular Clouds identified in the Galactic Ring Survey
• Resolution of the Distance Ambiguity for Galactic HII Regions
• ATLASGAL --- properties of compact HII regions and their natal clumps
• The distribution of the ISM in the Milky Way A three-dimensional large-scale model
• The Luminosity Functions and Timescales of MYSOs and Compact HII regions
• Molecular clouds and clumps in the Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
• The RMS Survey: ${}^{13}$CO observations of candidate massive YSOs in the northern Galactic plane
• The Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. VIII. A Mid-Infrared Kinematic Distance Discrimination Method
• On the Distance and Molecular Environment of Westerlund 2 and HESS J1023-575
• A tale of two cores: Triggered massive star formation in the bright-rimmed cloud SFO 75

Cited by in corpus (110)

• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• Trigonometric Parallaxes Of High-Mass Star Forming Regions: Our View Of The Milky Way
• ATLASGAL --- properties of a complete sample of Galactic clumps
• A Parallax-based Distance Estimator for Spiral Arm Sources
• ATLASGAL --- towards a complete sample of massive star forming clumps
• Properties of Hi-GAL clumps in the inner Galaxy]{The Hi-GAL compact source catalogue. I. The physical properties of the clumps in the inner Galaxy ($-71.0^{\circ }<\ell <67.0^{\circ }$)
• Evolution of the Milky Way with radial motions of stars and gas I. The solar neighborhood and the thin and thick disk
• Estimates of black-hole natal kick velocities from observations of low-mass X-ray binaries
• A distance limited sample of massive molecular outflows
• SEDIGISM: Structure, excitation, and dynamics of the inner Galactic interstellar medium
• CHIMPS: the ${}^{13}$CO/C${}^{18}$O (J=3-2) Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey
• ATLASGAL -- A Galaxy-wide sample of dense filamentary structures
• Stars with Photometrically Young Gaia Luminosities Around the Solar System (SPYGLASS) I: Mapping Young Stellar Structures and their Star Formation Histories
• The Galactic distribution of X-ray binaries and its implications for compact object formation and natal kicks
• ATLASGAL - Kinematic distances and the dense gas mass distribution of the inner Galaxy
• ATLASGAL-selected massive clumps in the inner Galaxy III. Dust Continuum Characterization of an Evolutionary Sample
• A search for ionized jets towards massive young stellar objects
• The SEDIGISM survey: first data release and overview of the Galactic structure
• Final Targeting Strategy for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2S Survey
• The Skeleton of the Milky Way
• Mapping the Milky Way bulge at high resolution: the 3D dust extinction, CO, and X factor maps
• Chemical probes of turbulence in the diffuse medium: the TDR model
• ATLASGAL-selected massive clumps in the inner Galaxy: V. Temperature structure and evolution
• The Hi-GAL catalogue of dusty filamentary structures in the Galactic Plane
• Chemical evolution of the Milky Way: constraints on the formation of the thick and thin discs
• The SEDIGISM survey: Molecular clouds in the inner Galaxy
• Toward gas exhaustion in the W51 high-mass protoclusters
• Parallaxes of Star Forming Regions in the Outer Spiral Arm of the Milky Way
• The spiral structure of the Milky Way
• Chasing discs around O-type (proto)stars - ALMA evidence for an SiO disc and disc wind from G17.64+0.16
• A guided map to the Spiral arms in the galactic disk of the Milky Way
• The JCMT Plane Survey: early results from the l = 30 degree field
• CHIMPS: Physical properties of molecular clumps across the inner Galaxy
• The Bar and Spiral Arms in the Milky Way: Structure and Kinematics
• The almost ubiquitous association of 6.7 GHz methanol masers with dust
• The dense gas mass fraction in the W51 cloud and its protoclusters
• Star formation scales and efficiency in Galactic spiral arms
• Spiral Arms as Cosmic Ray Source Distributions
• H2O Southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS): Paper III - Properties of Dense Molecular Gas across the Inner Milky Way
• Direct observational evidence of the multi-scale, dynamical mass accretion toward a high-mass star forming hub-filament system
• Propagation in 3D spiral-arm cosmic-ray source distribution models and secondary particle production using PICARD
• High-mass Starless Clumps in the inner Galactic Plane: the Sample and Dust Properties
• A distance limited sample of massive star forming cores from the RMS survey
• The prevalence of star formation as a function of Galactocentric radius
• The RMS Survey: Ammonia mapping of the environment of massive young stellar objects
• The history of dynamics and stellar feedback revealed by the HI filamentary structure in the disk of the Milky Way
• Establishing the evolutionary timescales of the massive star formation process through chemistry
• Determination of the Sun's Offset from the Galactic Plane Using Pulsars
• Survey of ortho-H${}_2$D${}^{+}$ in high-mass star-forming regions
• The observed mass distribution of Galactic black hole LMXBs is biased against massive black holes
• A Statistical Analysis of Galactic Radio Supernova Remnants
• SEDIGISM-ATLASGAL: Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency Across the Galactic Disk
• ATLASGAL --- Molecular fingerprints of a sample of massive star forming clumps
• Unlocking Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars with $\text{Gaia}$ DR2 II: Cluster and Association membership
• The spiral structure in the Solar neighborhood
• The role of spiral arms in Milky Way star formation
• Properties of massive star-forming clumps with infall motions
• An Observationally-Derived Kick Distribution for Neutron Stars in Binary Systems
• ATLASGAL - Ammonia observations towards the southern Galactic Plane
• No velocity-kicks are required to explain large-distance offsets of Ca-rich supernovae and short-GRBs
• Thermal balance and comparison of gas and dust properties of dense clumps in the Hi-GAL survey
• Gaia-DR2 distance to the W3 Complex in the Perseus Arm
• Parallaxes for star forming regions in the inner Perseus spiral arm
• Young Stellar Objects in the Massive Star Forming Region W49
• Interstellar dust along the line of sight of GX 3+1
• An analysis of star formation with Herschel in the Hi-GAL Survey. II. The tips of the Galactic bar
• The Galactic Plane Infrared Polarization Survey (GPIPS): Data Release 4
• Tentative detection of ethylene glycol toward W51/e2 and G34.3+0.2
• Inferring the parallax of Westerlund 1 from Gaia DR2
• HyGAL: Characterizing the Galactic ISM with observations of hydrides and other small molecules -- I. Survey description and a first look toward W3(OH), W3 IRS5 and NGC 7538 IRS1
• 2S1553-542: a Be/X-ray binary pulsar on the far side of the Galaxy
• Fingerprinting the effects of hyperfine structure on CH and OH far infrared spectra using Wiener filter deconvolution
• Simultaneous Survey of Water and Class I Methanol Masers toward Red MSX Sources
• The Galactic neutron star population I - an extragalactic view of the Milky Way and the implications for fast radio bursts
• New detections of (sub)millimeter hydrogen radio recombination lines towards high-mass star-forming clumps
• The Milky Way Project: What are Yellowballs?
• 12CO (3-2) High-Resolution Survey (COHRS) of the Galactic Plane: Complete Data Release
• High Resolution LAsMA ${}^{12}$CO and ${}^{13}$CO Observation of the G305 Giant Molecular Cloud Complex : I. Feedback on the Molecular Gas
• The Co-Ordinated Radio and Infrared Survey for High-Mass Star Formation. V. The CORNISH-South Survey and Catalogue
• Action-based Dynamical Modeling for the Milky Way Disk: The Influence of Spiral Arms
• The H${}_2$O Spectrum of the Massive Protostar AFGL 2136 IRS 1 from 2 to 13 $\mu$m at High Resolution: Probing the Circumstellar Disk
• A multi-scale exploration of a massive young stellar object - a transition disk around G305.20+0.21?
• Extending the view of ArH+ chemistry in diffuse clouds
• Trigonometric Distance and Proper Motion of IRAS 20056+3350: Massive Star Forming Region on the Solar Circle
• Growing Local arm inferred by the breathing motion
• High resolution LAsMA ${}^{12}$CO and ${}^{13}$CO observation of the G305 giant molecular cloud complex : II. Effect of feedback on clump properties
• VERA astrometry toward the Perseus arm gap
• The radial supernova remnant distribution in the Galaxy
• The initial mass function of stars and the star-formation rates of galaxies
• Possible Explosive Dispersal Outflow in IRAS 16076-5134 revealed with ALMA
• Extreme star formation in the Milky Way: Luminosity distributions of young stellar objects in W49A and W51
• The RMS Survey: Ammonia mapping of the environment of young massive stellar objects II
• NE2025: An Updated Electron Density Model for the Galactic Interstellar Medium
• A non-axisymmetric potential for the Milky Way disk
• Molecular line mapping of the giant molecular cloud associated with RCW 106 - IV. Ammonia towards dust emission
• Cloud-cloud collision and star formation in G013.313+0.193
• SCOTCH Search for Clandestine Optically Thick Compact HII regions II
• Stellar rotation effects in polarimetric microlensing
• New Compact Star Cluster Candidates in the Galactic Plane
• A New Search for Star Forming Regions in the Southern Outer Galaxy
• The multi-zone chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge: predicting abundances for different radial zones
• OGHReS: Star formation in the Outer Galaxy II ($\ell =180^{\circ }$-$280^{\circ }$)
• Multi-wavelength study of the high Galactic latitude supernova remnant candidate G118.4+37.0 associated with the Calvera pulsar
• Search for High-Mass Protostellar Objects in Cold IRAS Sources
• Molecular gas in the star-forming region IRAS 08589-4714
• Investigating star-formation activity towards the southern HII region RCW 42
• Insights into the structure and kinematics of a Milky Way-like galaxy
• Fermi-LAT View on Three Ultra-high-energy 1LHAASO Sources in the $52^{\circ }<l<55^{\circ }$ Region
• Exploring the nature of Galactic unassociated sources detected by the Fermi-LAT
• Investigating star formation scenarios in the Milky Way using YSO distributions -- A pilot study