High Mass Star Formation. III. The Functional Form of the Submillimeter Clump Mass Function

Abstract

We investigate the mass function of cold, dusty clumps in 11 low- and high-mass star-forming regions. Using a homogeneous fitting technique, we analyze the shape of each region's clump mass function and examine the commonalities among them. We find that the submillimeter continuum clump mass function in low-mass star-forming regions is typically best fit by a lognormal distribution, while that in high-mass star-forming regions is better fit by a double power law. A single power law clump mass distribution is ruled out in all cases. Fitting all of the regions with a double power law, we find the mean power law exponent at the high-mass end of each mass function is alpha_high = -2.4+/-0.1, consistent with the Salpeter result of alpha = -2.35. We find no region-to-region trend in alpha_high with the mass scale of the clumps in a given region, as characterized by their median mass. Similarly, non non-parametric tests show that the shape of the clump mass function does not change much from region to region, despite the obvious changes in the intrinsic mass scale. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the clump mass distribution is determined by a highly stochastic process, such as turbulent fragmentation. It may also suggest that the data reduction and analysis techniques strongly affect the shape of the derived mass function.

arXiv comment34 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the October 10, 2006 issue of the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (24)

• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Initial Mass Function of Stars: Evidence for Uniformity in Variable Systems
• The Stellar IMF from Turbulent Fragmentation
• The Formation of Massive Stars from Turbulent Cores
• Massive star formation: Nurture, not nature
• Massive star formation in 100,000 years from turbulent and pressurized molecular clouds
• Star formation in clusters: a survey of compact mm-wave sources in the Serpens core
• A Theory of the IMF for Star Formation in Molecular Clouds
• The Formation of Stellar Clusters: Gaussian Cloud Conditions I
• The Formation of Stellar Clusters: Mass Spectra from Turbulent Molecular Cloud Fragmentation
• Accretion in stellar clusters and the IMF
• From Massive Protostars to a Giant HII Region: Submillimeter Imaging of the Galactic Mini-starburst W43
• A SCUBA survey of the NGC 2068/2071 protoclusters
• Fragmentation of Molecular Clouds: The Initial Phase of a Stellar Cluster
• Numerical biases on IMF determinations created by binning
• How Protostellar Outflows Help Massive Stars Form
• Analysis of Clumps in Molecular Cloud Models: Mass Spectrum, Shapes, Alignment and Rotation
• Radiation Feedback and Fragmentation in Massive Protostellar Cores
• High Mass Star Formation I: The Mass Distribution of Submillimeter Clumps in NGC 7538
• The Formation of Star Clusters I: 3D Simulations of Hydrodynamic Turbulence
• The Giant Molecular Cloud associated with RCW 106 -- A 1.2 mm continuum mapping study
• Variability in the stellar initial mass function at low and high mass: 3-component IMF models
• High Mass Star Formation. II. The Mass Function of Submillimeter Clumps in M17
• Clumpy shocks and the clump mass function

Cited by in corpus (39)

• Theory of Star Formation
• Radiation-Hydrodynamic Simulations of Collapse and Fragmentation in Massive Protostellar Cores
• The Big Problems in Star Formation: the Star Formation Rate, Stellar Clustering, and the Initial Mass Function
• Star formation in Perseus - V. Outflows detected by HARP
• Stellar Feedback in Molecular Clouds and its Influence on the Mass Function of Young Star Clusters
• A census of dense cores in the Aquila cloud complex: SPIRE/PACS observations from the Herschel Gould Belt survey
• The unexpectedly large proportion of high-mass star-forming cores in a Galactic mini-starburst
• The Perils of Clumpfind: The Mass Spectrum of Sub-structures in Molecular Clouds
• Radiation Feedback, Fragmentation, and the Environmental Dependence of the Initial Mass Function
• ATLASGAL - Kinematic distances and the dense gas mass distribution of the inner Galaxy
• Feedback Effects on Low-Mass Star Formation
• Dense cores in the Pipe Nebula: An improved core mass function
• The relationship between the prestellar core mass function and the stellar initial mass function
• From diffuse gas to dense molecular cloud cores
• Molecular line mapping of the giant molecular cloud associated with RCW 106 - II. Column density and dynamical state of the clumps
• Core Mass Function: The Role of Gravity
• Linking Dense Gas from the Milky Way to External Galaxies
• On the Evolution of the Dense Core Mass Function
• Massive Clumps in the NGC 6334 Star Forming Region
• 13CO Cores in Taurus Molecular Cloud
• Near-Infrared Imaging Polarimetry of the Serpens Cloud Core: Magnetic Field Structure, Outflows, and Inflows in A Cluster Forming Clump
• Measuring the Clump Mass Function in the Age of SCUBA2, Herschel, and ALMA
• On the fidelity of the core mass functions derived from dust column density data
• The properties of SCUBA cores in the Perseus molecular cloud: the bias of clump-finding algorithms
• Nucleosynthetic Constraints on the Mass of the Heaviest Supernovae
• A C${}^{18}$O study of the origin of the power-law nature in the IMF
• Molecular Clouds in the North American and Pelican Nebulae: Structures
• The Core Mass Function Across Galactic Environments. III. Massive Protoclusters
• High-mass star formation at high luminosities: W31 at >10^6 L_sun
• Similarity between the C18O (J=1-0) core mass function and the IMF in the S 140 region
• The Clump Mass Function of the Dense Clouds in the Carina Nebula Complex
• Clump mass function at an early stage of molecular cloud evolution: II. Galactic cloud complexes
• The mass distribution of clumps within infrared dark clouds. A Large APEX Bolometer Camera study
• G345.45+1.50: An expanding ring-like structure with massive star formation
• Extreme giant molecular clouds in the luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256
• An ALMA archival study of the clump mass function in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• High Mass Star Formation by Gravitational Collapse of Massive Cores
• Characterising the high-mass star forming region IRAS 18144-1723 through methanol maser observations
• Statistical mass function of prestellar cores from the density distribution of their natal clouds