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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Limits on initial mass segregation in young clusters

TLDR
In this article, the authors show that star formation scenarios predicting general primordial mass segregation are inconsistent with observed segregation levels, and discuss the implications of their results for theories of star formation.
Abstract
Mass segregation is observed in many star clusters, including several that are less than a few Myr old. Time-scale arguments are frequently used to argue that these clusters must be displaying primordial segregation, because they are too young to be dynamically relaxed. Looking at this argument from the other side, the youth of these clusters and the limited time available to mix spatially distinct populations of stars can provide constraints on the amount of initial segregation that is consistent with current observations. We present n-body experiments testing this idea, and discuss the implications of our results for theories of star formation. For system ages less than a few crossing times, we show that star formation scenarios predicting general primordial mass segregation are inconsistent with observed segregation levels.

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Ionizing feedback from massive stars in massive clusters – II. Disruption of bound clusters by photoionization

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a smoothed particle hydrodynamics parameter study of the dynamical effect of photoionization from O-type stars on star-forming clouds of a range of masses and sizes during the time window before supernovae explode.
Journal ArticleDOI

Massive stars in massive clusters II: Disruption of bound clusters by photoionization

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an SPH parameter study of the dynamical effect of photoionization from O-type stars on star-forming clouds of a range of masses and sizes during the time window before supernovae explode.
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Dynamical mass segregation on a very short timescale

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the observations and theory of star cluster formation and argue that clusters form dynamically cool (subvirial) and with substructure, and perform an ensemble of simulations of cool, clumpy (fractal) clusters and show that they often dynamically mass segregation on timescales far shorter than expected from simple models.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamical evolution of star-forming regions

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model the dynamical evolution of star-forming regions with a wide range of initial properties and introduce the Q − "LDR plot, which describes the evolution of spatial structure as a function of mass-weighted local density.
Journal ArticleDOI

Young stellar groups and their most massive stars

TL;DR: In this paper, the masses and spatial distributions of 14 young stellar groups in Taurus, Lupus3, ChaI, and IC348 were analyzed and the properties of these groups were analyzed.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

On the variation of the initial mass function

TL;DR: In this paper, the uncertainty inherent in any observational estimate of the IMF is investigated by studying the scatter introduced by Poisson noise and the dynamical evolution of star clusters, and it is found that this apparent scatter reproduces quite well the observed scatter in power-law index determinations, thus defining the fundamental limit within which any true variation becomes undetectable.
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The Formation of Massive Stars from Turbulent Cores

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that massive-star forming regions are supersonically turbulent, and that the molecular cores out of which individual massive stars form are as well, and they apply these results to predict the properties of protostars thought to be powering several observed hot molecular cores.
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Gravitational N-Body Simulations

TL;DR: The N-body problem has been studied in a wide range of applications, e.g., prediction-corrector methods, neighbor treatments, tree codes, chain procedures, and chain procedures with GRAPE as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI

A Preliminary Study of the Orion Nebula Cluster Structure and Dynamics

TL;DR: The Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) as discussed by the authors is a very young cluster that is not circularly symmetric in projection but is elongated north-south in a manner similar to the molecular gas distribution in the region, suggesting that the stellar system may still reflect the geometry of the protocluster cloud.
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