On the duration of the embedded phase of star formation

Abstract

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 pc resolution, using CO, Spitzer 24$\mu \mathrm{m}$, and H$\alpha$ emission as tracers of molecular clouds, embedded star formation, and exposed star formation, respectively. We find that the embedded phase (with CO and 24$\mu \mathrm{m}$ emission) lasts for $2-7$ Myr and constitutes $17-47\%$ of the cloud lifetime. During approximately the first half of this phase, the region is invisible in H$\alpha$, making it heavily obscured. For the second half of this phase, the region also emits in H$\alpha$ and is partially exposed. Once the cloud has been dispersed by feedback, 24$\mu \mathrm{m}$ 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 timescales do not show significant correlations with environmental properties (e.g. metallicity). Future JWST observations will enable these measurements routinely across the nearby galaxy population.

arXiv comment23 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS (March 19, 2021)

References in corpus (138)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• The chemical composition of the Sun
• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• Embedded Clusters in Molecular Clouds
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
• The CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• The Star Formation Law in Nearby Galaxies on Sub-Kpc Scales
• Some Aspects of Measurement Error in Linear Regression of Astronomical Data
• SINGS: The SIRTF Nearby Galaxies Survey
• Dust Masses, PAH Abundances, and Starlight Intensities in the SINGS Galaxy Sample
• The Calibration of Mid-Infrared Star Formation Rate Indicators
• HyperLEDA. III. The catalogue of extragalactic distances
• Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) I: Overview and Initial Results
• An Analysis of the Shapes of Interstellar Extinction Curves. V. The IR-Through-UV Curve Morphology
• A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent
• Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Nearby Disk Galaxies
• Gas-to-Dust mass ratios in local galaxies over a 2 dex metallicity range
• Star Formation in NGC 5194 (M51a). II. The Spatially-Resolved Star Formation Law
• Star Formation in a Crossing Time
• The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury
• The Spitzer Local Volume Legacy: Survey Description and Infrared Photometry
• Common-Resolution Convolution Kernels for Space- and Ground-Based Telescopes
• The Star Formation History of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• A Robotic Wide-Angle H-Alpha Survey of the Southern Sky
• Star Formation in NGC5194 (M51a): The Panchromatic View from GALEX to Spitzer
• The Effects of Stellar Rotation. II. A Comprehensive Set of Starburst99 Models
• A Survey of Local Group Galaxies Currently Forming Stars. I. UBVRI Photometry of Stars in M31 and M33
• An Ultraviolet-to-Radio Broadband Spectral Atlas of Nearby Galaxies
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury
• The Big Problems in Star Formation: the Star Formation Rate, Stellar Clustering, and the Initial Mass Function
• Feedback, Disk Self-regulation and Galaxy Formation
• The Second Survey of the Molecular Clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud by NANTEN. II. Star Formation
• A z=0 Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis I: A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies
• The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• The Second Survey of the Molecular Clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud by NANTEN I: Catalog of Molecular Clouds
• The Magellanic Mopra Assessment (MAGMA). I. The Molecular Cloud Population of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• A New Look at the Large-Scale HI Structure of the LMC
• The PdBI Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey (PAWS). I. A Cloud-Scale/Multi-Wavelength View of the Interstellar Medium in a Grand-Design Spiral Galaxy
• The Extragalactic Distance Database: Color-Magnitude Diagrams
• Hierarchical Star Formation from the Time-Space Distribution of Star Clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• On the oxygen abundance determination in HII regions: High - metallicity regions
• Modeling UV Radiation Feedback from Massive Stars: II. Dispersal of Star-Forming Giant Molecular Clouds by Photoionization and Radiation Pressure
• Giant Molecular Clouds in M33 - I. BIMA All Disk Survey
• An uncertainty principle for star formation. I. Why galactic star formation relations break down below a certain spatial scale
• The Scale Dependence of the Molecular Gas Depletion Time in M33
• SLUG - Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies I: Methods and Validating Tests
• Estimating the Star Formation Rate at 1 kpc Scales in Nearby Galaxies
• Spitzer/MIPS Infrared Imaging of M31: Further Evidence for a Spiral/Ring Composite Structure
• The Plateau de Bure + 30m Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey reveals a thick disk of diffuse molecular gas in the M51 galaxy
• A wide-field HI mosaic of Messier 31. II.The disk warp, rotation and the dark matter halo
• Molecular gas in the Andromeda galaxy
• Star Formation in Massive Clusters via the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Spitzer Glimpse Survey
• Molecular and Atomic Gas in the Local Group Galaxy M33
• A Galactic-scale gas wave in the Solar Neighborhood
• Breakdown of Kennicutt-Schmidt Law at GMC Scales in M33
• SLUG -- Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies. III: A Suite of Tools for Simulated Photometry, Spectroscopy, and Bayesian Inference with Stochastic Stellar Populations
• Cloud Scale ISM Structure and Star Formation in M51
• Studying the YMC population of M83: how long clusters remain embedded, their interaction with the ISM and implications for GC formation theories
• Chemical abundances in M31 from HII regions
• The Star Formation Efficiency per Free Fall Time in Nearby Galaxies
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury XI: The Spatially-Resolved Recent Star Formation History of M31
• An Accounting of the Dust-Obscured Star Formation and Accretion Histories Over the Last ~11~Billion Years
• Star formation in M33: multiwavelength signatures across the disk
• The molecular cloud lifecycle
• SLUG - Stochastically Lighting Up Galaxies. II: Quantifying the Effects of Stochasticity on Star Formation Rate Indicators
• "Counterpart" method for abundance determinations in HII regions
• The Contribution of Field OB Stars to the Ionization of the Diffuse Ionized Gas in M33
• The modelling of feedback in star formation simulations
• ALMA Observations of the Antennae Galaxies: I. A New Window on a Prototypical Merger
• A 50 pc scale view of star formation efficiency across NGC 628
• The Incidence of Highly-Obscured Star-Forming Regions in SINGS Galaxies
• A New Catalog of HII Regions in M31
• From molecules to Young Stellar Clusters: the star formation cycle across the M33 disk
• An uncertainty principle for star formation - II. A new method for characterising the cloud-scale physics of star formation and feedback across cosmic history
• The PdBI Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey (PAWS): Multi-phase cold gas kinematic of M51
• Connecting Young Star Clusters to CO Molecular Gas in NGC 7793 with ALMA-LEGUS
• The local radio-IR correlation in M51
• The Spatial Relation between Young Star Clusters and Molecular Clouds in M 51 with LEGUS
• Carbon and oxygen in HII regions of the Magellanic Clouds: abundance discrepancy and chemical evolution
• Uncovering the Origins of Spiral Structure by Measuring Radial Variation in Pattern Speeds
• Gas and dark matter in the Sculptor group: NGC 300
• Herschel Exploitation of Local Galaxy Andromeda (HELGA) III: The Star Formation Law in M31
• The Abundance Scatter in M33 from HII Regions: Is There Any Evidence for Azimuthal Metallicity Variations?
• How Galactic Environment affects the Dynamical State of Molecular Clouds and their Star Formation Efficiency
• GMC Evolutions in the Nearby Spiral Galaxy M33
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies I. Assessment of Multi-scale Variations
• The Herschel Exploitation of Local Galaxy Andromeda (HELGA) VII: A SKIRT radiative transfer model and insights on dust heating
• CO-bandhead spectroscopy of IC 342: mass and age of the nuclear star cluster
• CARMA Survey Toward Infrared-bright Nearby Galaxies (STING): Molecular Gas Star Formation Law in NGC4254
• Carbon and oxygen abundance gradients in NGC300 and M33 from optical recombination lines
• Feedback from massive stars at low metallicities: MUSE observations of N44 and N180 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Interstellar Medium and Star Formation in Edge-On Galaxies. II. NGC 4157, 4565, and 5907
• The Brightest Young Star Clusters in NGC 5253
• The Relationship Between Molecular Gas, HI, and Star Formation in the Low-Mass, Low-Metallicity Magellanic Clouds
• Ubiquitous velocity fluctuations throughout the molecular interstellar medium
• How Universal is the SFR - H2 Relation?
• Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100pc scales in M51
• Photoionization of High Altitude Gas in a Supernova-Driven Turbulent Interstellar Medium
• Which feedback mechanisms dominate in the high-pressure environment of the Central Molecular Zone?
• Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch and Distances to the Maffei/IC 342 Group
• The Araucaria Project. A Distance Determination to the Local Group Spiral M33 from Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables
• Kinematics of the Atomic ISM in M33 on 80 pc scales
• Supernova feedback and the energy deposition in molecular clouds
• Interstellar Bubbles in Two Young HII Regions
• Stellar Feedback and Resolved Stellar IFU Spectroscopy in the nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 300
• Main-sequence stars masquerading as Young Stellar Objects in the central molecular zone
• The Spatial Distribution of Dust and Stellar Emission of the Magellanic Clouds
• The Abundance Properties of Nearby Late-Type Galaxies. \\ II. The Relation between Abundance Distributions and Surface Brightness Profiles
• An uncertainty principle for star formation -- III. The characteristic emission time-scales of star formation rate tracers
• Molecular Gas Velocity Dispersions in the Andromeda Galaxy
• The headlight cloud in NGC 628: An extreme giant molecular cloud in a typical galaxy disk
• Molecular Cloud-scale Star Formation in NGC 300
• The star-formation law at GMC scales in M33, the Triangulum Galaxy
• High-Resolution Radiative Transfer Modelling of M33
• On the Spatially Resolved Star Formation History in M51 I: Hybrid UV+IR Star Formation Laws and IR Emission from Dust Heated by Old Stars
• AlFoCS + Fornax3D: resolved star formation in the Fornax cluster with ALMA and MUSE
• ALMA Observations of a Quiescent Molecular Cloud in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The population of Young Stellar Clusters throughout the disk of M33
• The Stellar Mass of M31 as inferred by the Andromeda Optical & Infrared Disk Survey
• An uncertainty principle for star formation - IV. On the nature and filtering of diffuse emission
• Testing 24 micron and Infrared Luminosity as Star Formation Tracers for Galactic Star Forming Regions
• The Evolution and Star Formation History of M33
• High-resolution, 3D radiative transfer modelling V. A detailed model of the M51 interacting pair
• Highly Embedded 8 micron Cores of Star Formation in the Spiral Arms and Filaments of 15 Nearby Disk Galaxies
• The star-formation history of low-mass disk galaxies: a case study of NGC\,300
• Towards a multi-tracer timeline of star formation in the LMC -- I.\ Deriving the lifetimes of H\,{\sc i} clouds
• Structure and Dynamics of Candidate O Star Bubbles in N44
• Volumetric Star Formation Prescriptions in Vertically Resolved Edge-on Galaxies
• Theoretical modelling of two-component molecular discs in spiral galaxies
• An uncertainty principle for star formation -- V. The influence of dust extinction on star formation rate tracer lifetimes and the inferred molecular cloud lifecycle
• Observing the Earliest Stages of Star Formation in Galaxies: 8 micron Cores in Three Edge-on Disks

Cited by in corpus (71)

• The PHANGS-MUSE survey -- Probing the chemo-dynamical evolution of disc galaxies
• From dawn till disk: Milky Way's turbulent youth revealed by the APOGEE+Gaia data
• The PHANGS-JWST Treasury Survey: Star Formation, Feedback, and Dust Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS
• Star Formation Efficiency and Dispersal of Giant Molecular Clouds with UV Radiation Feedback: Dependence on Gravitational Boundedness and Magnetic Fields
• Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective
• Pressure-Regulated, Feedback-Modulated Star Formation In Disk Galaxies
• The PHANGS-MUSE Nebula Catalogue
• H-alpha emission in local galaxies: star formation, time variability and the diffuse ionized gas
• Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main sequence galaxies
• Radiation hydrodynamics simulations of massive star cluster formation in giant molecular clouds
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Multi-wavelength view of feedback-driven bubbles (The Phantom Voids) across NGC 628
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Mid-infrared emission traces both gas column density and heating at 100 pc scales
• Comparing the pre-SNe feedback and environmental pressures for 6000 HII regions across 19 nearby spiral galaxies
• The impact of pre-supernova feedback and its dependence on environment
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Massive Young Star Clusters and New Insights from JWST Observations of NGC 1365
• A systematic study of the escape of LyC and Ly$\alpha$ photons from star-forming, magnetized turbulent clouds
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Duration of the early phase of massive star formation in NGC628
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Rapid Evolution of Star Formation in the Central Molecular Gas Ring of NGC1365
• Quantifying the energetics of molecular superbubbles in PHANGS galaxies
• H$\alpha$ Morphologies of Star Clusters in 16 LEGUS Galaxies: Constraints on HII region evolution timescales
• Unveiling the star formation history of the Upper Scorpius association through its kinematics
• Dense molecular gas properties on 100 pc scales across the disc of NGC 3627
• Spatial Decorrelation of Young Stars and Dense Gas as a Probe of the Star Formation-Feedback Cycle in Galaxies
• RIGEL: Simulating dwarf galaxies at solar mass resolution with radiative transfer and feedback from individual massive stars
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies II. Resolved Distributions of CO and H$\alpha$ Emission for 49 PHANGS Galaxies
• The formation of massive stellar clusters in converging galactic flows with photoionisation
• Linking stellar populations to HII regions across nearby galaxies: I. Constraining pre-supernova feedback from young clusters in NGC1672
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: The 21 $\mu$m Compact Source Population
• Uncertainties in supernova input rates drive qualitative differences in simulations of galaxy evolution
• The formation and early evolution of embedded star clusters in spiral galaxies
• Molecular gas cloud properties at $z\simeq 1$ revealed by the superb angular resolution achieved with ALMA and gravitational lensing
• A scaling relation for the molecular cloud lifetime in Milky Way-like galaxies
• A 2-3 mm high-resolution molecular line survey towards the centre of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 6946
• Stellar associations powering HII regions $\unicode{x2013}$ I. Defining an evolutionary sequence
• Empirically-motivated early feedback: momentum input by stellar feedback in galaxy simulations inferred through observations
• PHANGS: Constraining Star Formation Timescales Using the Spatial Correlations of Star Clusters and Giant Molecular Clouds
• Mass Metallicity Relationship of SDSS Star Forming Galaxies: Population Synthesis Analysis and Effects of Star Burst Length, Extinction Law, Initial Mass Function and Star Formation Rate
• ALMA observations of the Extended Green Object G19.01$-$0.03: I. A Keplerian disc in a massive protostellar system
• Multi-Scale Stellar Associations across the Star Formation Hierarchy in PHANGS-HST Nearby Galaxies: Methodology and Properties
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Spurring on Star Formation: JWST Reveals Localised Star Formation in a Spiral Arm Spur of NGC 628
• On the initial mass-radius relation of stellar clusters
• The SOFIA FEEDBACK Legacy Survey: Rapid molecular cloud dispersal in RCW 79
• Molecular Clouds as Gravitational Instabilities in Rotating Disks: A Modified Stability Criterion
• Clusters, Clouds, and Correlations: Relating Young Clusters to Giant Molecular Clouds in M33 and M31
• Towards a multi-tracer timeline of star formation in the LMC -- II. The formation and destruction of molecular clouds
• Linking stellar populations to HII regions across nearby galaxies. II. Infrared Reprocessed and UV Direct Radiation Pressure in HII Regions
• WISDOM project -- XI. Star Formation Efficiency in the Bulge of the AGN-host Galaxy NGC 3169 with SITELLE and ALMA
• PHANGS-ALMA: Arcsecond CO(2-1) Imaging of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Timescales of Star Cluster Emergence: The Case of NGC 4449
• Pre-supernova feedback mechanisms drive the destruction of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• Dust Buried Compact Sources in the Dwarf Galaxy NGC 4449
• Comparing the Locations of Supernovae to CO (2-1) Emission in their Host Galaxies
• Noise-Net: Determining physical properties of HII regions reflecting observational uncertainties
• Constraining the LyC escape fraction from LEGUS star clusters with SIGNALS HII region observations: A pilot study of NGC 628
• The impact of HII regions on Giant Molecular Cloud properties in nearby galaxies sampled by PHANGS ALMA and MUSE
• Unbound stars hold the key to young star cluster history
• A sensitive, high-resolution, wide-field IRAM NOEMA CO(1-0) survey of the very nearby spiral galaxy IC 342
• The EDGE-CALIFA survey: Star formation relationships for galaxies at different stages of their evolution
• Giant molecular clouds and their Type classification in M74: Toward understanding star formation and cloud evolution
• Duration and properties of the embedded phase of star formation in 37 nearby galaxies from PHANGS-JWST
• Physical parameters of stellar population in star formation regions of galaxies
• GAMA 526784: the progenitor of a globular cluster-rich ultra-diffuse galaxy? II. Molecular gas, neutral gas and environment
• Electron density distribution in HII regions in IC10
• Nowhere Left to Hide: Uncovering All of the Massive Young Embedded Star Clusters in the Antennae with JWST
• Parameters of Star Formation Regions in Galaxies NGC 3963 and NGC 7292
• LMC+: Large-scale mapping of [CII] and [OIII] in the LMC molecular ridge, I. Dataset and line ratio analyses
• The impact of bars on the properties of HII regions in the TIMER survey
• PHANGS-MUSE: the HII region luminosity function of local star-forming galaxies
• Stellar associations powering HII regions $\unicode{x2013}$ II. Escape fraction of ionizing photons
• The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST). II. The Spatially Resolved Recent Star Formation History in M31
• Environmental Effects on the Dynamical Evolution of Star Clusters in Turbulent Molecular Clouds