Speaker
Timea Csengeri
(MPIfR Bonn)
Description
The ATLASGAL survey is one of the most sensitive and extensive ground-based survey of the inner Galaxy at sub-millimeter wavelengths, and provides an unprecedented view on all stages of massive star formation. Over 10 000 compact sources have been identified (Csengeri et al. 2014), and we have made substantial progress in characterising various evolutionary stages of the evolution of massive clumps by using ancillary radio and mid-infrared data, and assigned distances to a large number of sources.
Selected from ATLASGAL, we identified a complete sample of 45 objects which are massive (> 650 msol), dense (surface density > 1 g cm^-2) and lack bright mid-infrared objects. Our selection of these mid-infrared quiet massive clumps is complete within 4.5 kpc, and to date represents the best potential sites to host the next generation of the most massive stars currently forming in our Galaxy.
We used ALMA to perform the first systematic survey at high angular-resolution to look for high-mass protostars in this sample of massive clumps. As a first step by achieving a ~0.1 pc physical scale we confirm massive (>500 Msol) compact embedded sources and also reveal intensive outflows associated with these potentially young, Class 0 like high-mass protostars. Such a Galactic scale sample complemented with spectroscopic follow-up observations is the first step to characterize the initial conditions of high-mass star and cluster formation.
Author
Timea Csengeri
(MPIfR Bonn)