Galactic H2CO Densitometry I: Pilot survey of Ultracompact HII regions and methodology

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We examined 24 UCHII regions using the GBT to observe the 2-2 line of ortho-Formaldehyde. We measured the local gas density and compared to GMCs and other galaxies. We found densities in GMCs that are 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than the mean density in GMCs, implying that extreme overdensities are common even in "quiescent" (non-star-forming) GMCs. This work was almost entirely my own, but was seeded by Jeremy Darling Some highlight figures from the paper:

A sample spectrum. On the top, black is Formaldehyde 1-1, red is Formaldehyde 2-2. On the bottom, blue is 13CO, red is H77α, black is H110α.

Histograms of GMC mean densities and the densities measured directly from our survey. Note that even for "serendipitious" line of sight GMCs, the densities are MUCH higher than typical GMC densities.

Comparison of the measured column densities of formaldehyde and inferred number densities of H₂.

Outflows and Massive Stars in the protocluster IRAS 05358+3543

ADS
arXiv

A mm and near-IR study of the IRAS 05358+3543 system. Recently (2011), it has become clear that "protocluster" is unlikely to be the right label for IRAS 05358+3543. "proto-association" might be more accurate.

Perhaps the most interesting result of this paper is the discovery that the central source is likely to be a 400-AU binary with two massive (>8 msun) stars at different evolutionary stages. It is just barely in ALMA's range...