ATLASGAL --- Molecular fingerprints of a sample of massive star forming clumps

Abstract

We have conducted a 3-mm molecular-line survey towards 570 high-mass star-forming clumps, using the Mopra telescope. The sample is selected from the 10,000 clumps identified by the ATLASGAL survey and includes all of the most important embedded evolutionary stages associated with massive star formation, classified into five distinct categories (quiescent, protostellar, young stellar objects, \hii\ regions and photo-dominated regions). The observations were performed in broadband mode with frequency coverage of 85.2 to 93.4\,GHz and a velocity resolution of $\sim$0.9\,\kms, detecting emission from 26 different transitions. We find significant evolutionary trends in the detection rates, integrated line intensities, and abundances of many of the transitions and also identify a couple of molecules that appear to be invariant to changes in the dust temperature and evolutionary stage (N${}_2$H${}^{+}$\,(1-0) and HN${}^{13}$C\,(1-0)). We use the K-ladders for CH${}_3$C${}_2$H\,(5-4) and CH${}_3$CH\,(5-4) to calculate the rotation temperatures and find $\sim$1/3 of the quiescent clumps have rotation temperatures that suggest the presence of an internal heating source. These sources may constitute a population of very young protostellar objects that are still dark at 70\,\mum\ and suggest that the fraction of truly quiescent clumps may only be a few per cent. We also identify a number of line ratios that show a strong correlation with the evolutionary stage of the embedded objects and discuss their utility as diagnostic probes of evolution.

Accepted for publication in MNRAS; consists of 28 pages, 22 figures and 10 tables. For full versions of Tables 1, 5 and 10 will only be available via CDS

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• Astrophysics Source Code Library
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Cited by in corpus (20)

• ATLASGAL -- Evolutionary trends in high-mass star formation
• The SEDIGISM survey: Molecular clouds in the inner Galaxy
• Chemical complexity in high-mass star formation: An observational and modeling case study of the AFGL 2591 VLA 3 hot core
• Establishing the evolutionary timescales of the massive star formation process through chemistry
• SEDIGISM-ATLASGAL: Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency Across the Galactic Disk
• ATLASGAL -- selected massive clumps in the inner Galaxy. IX. Deuteration of ammonia
• ALMA-IMF XVI: Mass-averaged temperature of cores and protostellar luminosities in the ALMA-IMF protoclusters
• ATLASGAL-selected massive clumps in the inner Galaxy: VIII. Chemistry of photodissociation regions
• Infall and Outflow Towards High-mass Starless Clump Candidates
• The physical and chemical structure of high-mass star-forming regions. Unraveling chemical complexity with the NOEMA large program "CORE"
• Chemical Evolution of HC3N in Dense Molecular Clouds
• A Possible Chemical Clock in High-mass Star-forming Regions: N(HC3N)/N(N2H+)?
• Cyanopolyyne line survey towards high-mass star-forming regions with TMRT
• Imaging Molecular Outflow in Massive Star-forming Regions with HNCO Lines
• Submillimeter continuum variability in Planck Galactic cold clumps
• Velocity-resolved high-J CO emission from massive star-forming clumps
• Chemical environments of 6.7 GHz methanol maser sources
• Dense gas linked to star-forming regions photoionised by embedded gamma-ray bursts
• An 18 - 25 GHz spectroscopic survey of southern hemisphere dense cores
• Synthetic observations using POLARIS: an application to simulations of massive prestellar cores