ALMAGAL

The physical mechanisms behind the fragmentation of high-mass dense clumps into compact star-forming cores and the properties of these cores are fundamental topics that are heavily investigated in current astrophysical research. The ALMAGAL survey provides the opportunity to study this process at an unprecedented level of detail and statistical significance, featuring high-angular resolution 1.38 mm ALMA observations of 1013 massive dense clumps at various Galactic locations. These clumps cover a wide range of distances (~2–8 kpc), masses (~10 2 –10 4 M ⊙ ), surface densities (0.1–10 g cm −2 ), and evolutionary stages (luminosity over mass ratio indicator of ~0.05 < L / M < 450 L ⊙ / M ⊙ ). Here, we present the catalog of compact sources obtained with the CuTEx algorithm from continuum images of the full ALMAGAL clump sample combining ACA-7 m and 12 m ALMA arrays, reaching a uniform high median spatial resolution of ~1400 au (down to ~800 au). We characterize and discuss the revealed fragmentation properties and the photometric and estimated physical parameters of the core population. The ALMAGAL compact source catalog includes 6348 cores detected in 844 clumps (83% of the total), with a number of cores per clump between 1 and 49 (median of 5). The estimated core diameters are mostly within ~800–3000 au (median of 1700 au). We assigned core temperatures based on the L / M of the hosting clump, and obtained core masses from 0.002 to 345 M ⊙ (complete above 0.23 M ⊙ ), exhibiting a good correlation with the core radii ( M ∝ R 2.6 ). We evaluated the variation in the core mass function (CMF) with evolution as traced by the clump L / M , finding a clear, robust shift and change in slope among CMFs within subsamples at different stages. This finding suggests that the CMF shape is not constant throughout the star formation process, but rather it builds (and flattens) with evolution, with higher core masses reached at later stages. We found that all cores within a clump grow in mass on average with evolution, while a population of possibly newly formed lower-mass cores is present throughout. The number of cores increases with the core masses, at least until the most massive core reaches ~10 M ⊙ . More generally, our results favor a clump-fed scenario for high-mass star formation, in which cores form as low-mass seeds, and then gain mass while further fragmentation occurs in the clump.

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Publication Details

Journal
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Published
2025-03-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452706
Citations
14
Primary Topic
Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
17.86
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article

ALMAGAL

A. Avison, A. Coletta, T. Möller, L. Bronfman et al.
14 citations
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction
17.86
article

ALMAGAL

A. Avison, A. Coletta, T. Möller, L. Bronfman, Patricio Sanhueza, P. Schilke, A. Nucara, G. A. Fuller, D.C. Lis, Stefanie Walch, Paul T. P. Ho, C. Battersby, K. L. J. Rygl, A. J. Rigby, Patrick M. Koch, S.-Y. Liu, Y. Maruccia, F. Fontani, T. Liu, Pamela Klaassen, C. Mininni, Á. Sánchez-Monge, Q. Zhang, H. Zinnecker, C. L. Brogan, K. Johnston, S. L. Lumsden, M. T. Beltrán, H. Beuther, T. R. Hunter, M. Benedettini, B. Jones, M.R.A. Wells, D. Elia, Yung-Chau Su, F. Wyrowski, L. Moscadelli, S. Molinari, R.S. Klessen, S. J. Liu, A. Ahmadi, F. van der Tak, A. Traficante, R. Kuiper, F. De Angelis, J. D. Soler, Ya‐Wen Tang, P. Hennebelle, L. Testi, Shaun D. Clarke, E. Schisano, P. Hatchfield
article en
14 citations

Abstract

The physical mechanisms behind the fragmentation of high-mass dense clumps into compact star-forming cores and the properties of these cores are fundamental topics that are heavily investigated in current astrophysical research. The ALMAGAL survey provides the opportunity to study this process at an unprecedented level of detail and statistical significance, featuring high-angular resolution 1.38 mm ALMA observations of 1013 massive dense clumps at various Galactic locations. These clumps cover a wide range of distances (~2–8 kpc), masses (~10 2 –10 4 M ⊙ ), surface densities (0.1–10 g cm −2 ), and evolutionary stages (luminosity over mass ratio indicator of ~0.05 < L / M < 450 L ⊙ / M ⊙ ). Here, we present the catalog of compact sources obtained with the CuTEx algorithm from continuum images of the full ALMAGAL clump sample combining ACA-7 m and 12 m ALMA arrays, reaching a uniform high median spatial resolution of ~1400 au (down to ~800 au). We characterize and discuss the revealed fragmentation properties and the photometric and estimated physical parameters of the core population. The ALMAGAL compact source catalog includes 6348 cores detected in 844 clumps (83% of the total), with a number of cores per clump between 1 and 49 (median of 5). The estimated core diameters are mostly within ~800–3000 au (median of 1700 au). We assigned core temperatures based on the L / M of the hosting clump, and obtained core masses from 0.002 to 345 M ⊙ (complete above 0.23 M ⊙ ), exhibiting a good correlation with the core radii ( M ∝ R 2.6 ). We evaluated the variation in the core mass function (CMF) with evolution as traced by the clump L / M , finding a clear, robust shift and change in slope among CMFs within subsamples at different stages. This finding suggests that the CMF shape is not constant throughout the star formation process, but rather it builds (and flattens) with evolution, with higher core masses reached at later stages. We found that all cores within a clump grow in mass on average with evolution, while a population of possibly newly formed lower-mass cores is present throughout. The number of cores increases with the core masses, at least until the most massive core reaches ~10 M ⊙ . More generally, our results favor a clump-fed scenario for high-mass star formation, in which cores form as low-mass seeds, and then gain mass while further fragmentation occurs in the clump.

Astronomy and AstrophysicsVol. 696
University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT), Leiden University (NL), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), University of Leeds (GB), Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica (TW), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US), University of Connecticut (US), University of Groningen (NL), University of Cologne (DE), National Institutes of Natural Sciences (JP), Université Paris Cité (FR), Heidelberg University (DE), National Radio Astronomy Observatory (US), Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR), Université Paris-Saclay (FR), Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (CN), Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (IT), Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte (IT), University of Manchester (GB), Universidad Autónoma de Chile (CL), Astrophysique, Instrumentation et Modélisation (FR), Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE), Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (ES), Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology (IT), Laboratoire d’Etudes du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique et Atmosphères (FR), Royal Observatory (GB), SKA Observatory (GB), Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE), Institute of Space Sciences (ES), Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna (IT), East Asian Observatory (US), Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US), CEA Paris-Saclay (FR), Almac (United Kingdom) (GB), Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (DE), National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP), Space Research Organisation Netherlands (NL), UK Astronomy Technology Centre (GB), University of Lincoln (GB), University of Duisburg-Essen (DE), University of Chile (CL), Cardiff University (GB), Sapienza University of Rome (IT), Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (NL), University of Bologna (IT)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction
17.86
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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