Researchers from the Purple Mountain Observatory, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the National Astronomical Observatories of China have published a study in the Astrophysical Journal that sheds light on star formation in the extreme environment of the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ). This research could have implications for understanding star formation in dense, high-pressure environments, which is relevant to the energy sector as stars are the ultimate source of energy in the universe.
The team of researchers characterized star-forming gas in six molecular clouds within the CMZ and compared their star-forming activities with those in molecular clouds outside the CMZ. They used multi-band continuum observations from various telescopes, including Planck, Herschel, JCMT/SCUBA-2, and CSO/SHARC2, to derive high-resolution column density maps for the CMZ clouds. They then evaluated the column density probability distribution functions (N-PDFs) and used archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data to assess the mass of the most massive cores in these clouds.
The researchers found that the N-PDFs of four of the selected CMZ clouds were well described by a piecewise log-normal plus power-law function, while the N-PDFs of the remaining two could be approximated by log-normal functions. In the first four targets, they observed correlations between the masses in the power-law component of the N-PDF, the mass of the most massive cores, and the star formation rate. These correlations were similar to those observed in low-mass clouds in the Solar neighborhood and massive star-forming regions on the Galactic disk.
The findings suggest that in the extreme environment of the CMZ, the power-law component in the N-PDF represents self-gravitationally bound gas structures. Moreover, the evolution and star-forming activities of these self-gravitationally bound gas structures may be self-regulated and insensitive to the exterior environment on scales larger than 5-10 parsecs. This research provides valuable insights into the processes governing star formation in dense, high-pressure environments, which could have implications for understanding the energy dynamics of the universe.
The practical applications for the energy sector are not direct, but understanding star formation and the processes governing it can help inform broader scientific understanding of energy production and distribution in the universe. This research was published in the Astrophysical Journal.
This article is based on research available at arXiv.