Clustering Properties of Young Stellar Objects in the Massive Star Forming Region W49 (original) (raw)
2014, American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #224, #223.07
Massive stars play a vital role in the star formation process, yet their own formation and their effects on subsequent generations of star formation is not well understood. To improve our understanding, we have begun a detailed study of massive and active star forming complexes in giant molecular clouds outside the Galactic Center. One of the main goals of this study is to identify and classify the Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) in each region by using Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC & MIPS data. Following this,YSO clusters will be identified based on spatial distributions of the detected sources. Studying clusters with different evolutionary stages will help us to understand the formation and evolution processes from beginning to end. This study will also provide significant information on how massive stars interact with their environment and how they affect the low-mass star formation in the cloud. Within this context, we present the initial results of our investigation on the star-forming complex W49 that is one of the youngest, most luminous and most massive star formation region in the Galaxy. We used a combination of Spitzer Space Telescope IRAC & MIPS data, Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and UKIRT Deep Infrared Sky Survey (UKIDSS) data to identify and classify the Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) and generated a final catalog with a photometry of sources containing more than 2 million sources within an area of size DeltalxDeltab = 2°.6 x 3°.4, centered at (l,b) = (42°.7,0°.04) over a wavelength range from 1.2 to 24 mum. With a preliminary source classification we identified thousands of YSO candidates. In addition, to understand the evolution of star formation in W49 we analyzed the distributions of YSOs to identify the clusters based on spatial distributions of the detected sources.
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