TUNA Lunch Talk
| Date & Time | Tuesday November 17, 2009
12:10-1:00pm |
| Location | NRAO, Room 230 |
| Title | Clustered Low Mass Star Formation in the Ophiuchus Molecular Cloud |
| Speaker | Rachael Friesen, National Radio Astronomy Observatory | | Abstract | Stars form out of the gravitational collapse of centrally condensed
cores of dense molecular gas. Systematic observations of molecular
emission lines which are excited at the high densities and cold
temperatures found in star forming regions have revealed the physical
and chemical structure of solar-mass size cores which have formed or
may soon form a single star or stellar binary, and form the basis of
theories of single-star formation. The initial conditions of star
formation in this `isolated' mode have consequently become
well-understood. Most stars, however, form in more clustered
environments. I will present the results of a systematic effort to
determine the initial conditions of clustered, low mass star
formation, in the nearby Ophiuchus molecular cloud, through emission
maps of molecular species (including NH3, N2H+, N2D+ and H2D+)
expected to trace cold, dense gas. |
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