Offerings from the COMPLETE Survey of Star-Forming Regions, c. 2005

Author(s)

A. A. Goodman, J. F. Alves, H. G. Arce, T. Bethell, M. A. Borkin, P. Caselli, J. Di Francesco, J. B. Foster, Michael Halle, Mark H. Heyer, D. Johnstone, H. Kirk, D. A. Kosslyn, D. Li, Jason G. Li, M. Lombardi, J. Pineda, N. A. Ridge, S. L. Schnee, M. Tafalla, N. Whitehorn

Abstract

The COMPLETE (COordinated Molecular Probe Line Extinction Thermal

Emission) Survey of Star-Forming Regions has now mapped the full extent

(as defined by the Spitzer c2d Legacy Survey) of the Perseus, Ophiuchus,

and Serpens star-forming regions in: 1) ¹²CO and

¹³CO maps (featuring >200,000 spectra) from FCRAO with 40

arcsec resolution; 2) extinction, using the ``NICER" method on 2MASS

data; and 3) thermal emission using a combination of IRAS (60 and 100

micron) and SCUBA (850 micron) data. The molecular line maps give

kinematic information, while the combination of the extinction and

thermal emission maps give the most accurate view of the clouds' dust

column density and temperature distributions to date. The COMPLETEd

``wide-field" maps represent ``Phase 1" of the Survey, and ``Phase 2,"

which offers close-up views of nearly all of the embedded ``cores"

within the COMPLETE fields is well underway. Our key results to date

include: 1) a new methodology for calibrating dust emission maps with

extinction maps (Schnee et al. 2005); 2) a new appreciation of the

fundamental uncertainty in the line-of-sight variations in dust

temperature introduced into column-density measurements using dust

emission (Schnee et al. 2006) 3) evidence for important interactions of

spherical winds from B-type stars with molecular clouds (see Ridge et

al. 2006a); 4) an extinction ``threshold" for star formation in

Ophiuchus (Johnstone et al. 2004); 5) demonstration that extinction

mapping routinely yields log-normal density distributions, which

disagree with molecular-line map based density distributions, because

the line data is biased by excitation and optical depth effects (Goodman

et al. 2006); 6) the discovery of ubiquitous ``cloudshine" coming from

dark clouds (Foster & Goodman 2005); 7) measurement and

identification of uncertainties in the clump mass function for Perseus

(Pineda et al. 2006); and 8) testing and new use of 3D medical-imaging

software for identification and analysis of spatial features (e.g.

clumps, outflows) within molecular line maps (Borkin et al. 2005;

Goodman et al. 2006). All of these data and results are online and

available for public use through the COMPLETE web site at

cfa-www.harvard.edu/COMPLETE, and the Phase 1 data are summarized

in Ridge et al. 2006b.

Organisation(s)

External organisation(s)

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of Victoria, European Southern Observatory (Germany), University of Wisconsin, Madison, American Museum of Natural History, INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Channing Division of Network Medicine, Jet Polution Laboratory, OAN, University of Chicago, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Yale University

Journal

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society

Volume

Pages

1475

ISSN

0002-7537

Publication date

12-2005

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103003 Astronomy

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/69294acb-92e8-4729-98ec-b95c8b49d9a8