Abstract
A detailed analysis is presented of the IR emission and CO properties of a large sample of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) with and without H II regions. It is found that high-mass star-forming clouds have significantly higher peak dust temperatures, but averaged over the entire cloud volume, their IR color temperatures are not very different from those of the general GMC population and the mean disk temperature. The results indicate that the bulk of the IR emission in GMCs is excited by embedded stars within the clouds rather than the exterior interstellar radiation field, that only a small fraction of the IR luminosity originates from stars which ionize the H II region. An overall higher level of star-formation activity for the H II region GMCs than the general population is indicated.
Published Version
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