The Blast Survey of the Vela Molecular Cloud: Physical Properties of the Dense Cores in Vela-D
Luca Olmi
(1)
,
Peter A. Ade
(2)
,
Daniel Anglés-Alcázar
(1)
,
James J. Bock
(3)
,
Edward L. Chapin
(4)
,
Massimo de Luca
(5)
,
Mark J. Devlin
(6)
,
Simon R. Dicker
(6)
,
Davide Elia
(7)
,
Giovanni G. Fazio
(8)
,
Teresa Giannini
(9)
,
Matthew J. Griffin
(2)
,
Joshua O. Gundersen
(10)
,
Mark Halpern
(4)
,
Peter C. Hargrave
(2)
,
David H. Hughes
(11)
,
Jeff Klein
(6)
,
Dario Lorenzetti
(9)
,
Massimo Marengo
(8)
,
Gaelen Marsden
(4)
,
Peter G. Martin
(12)
,
Fabrizio Massi
(13)
,
Philip Mauskopf
(2)
,
Calvin B. Netterfield
(14)
,
Guillaume Patanchon
(15)
,
Marie Rex
(6)
,
Alberto Salama
(16)
,
Douglas Scott
(4)
,
Christopher Semisch
(6)
,
Howard A. Smith
(8)
,
Francesco Strafella
(17)
,
Nicholas Thomas
(10)
,
Matthew D. P. Truch
(6)
,
Carol E. Tucker
(2)
,
Gregory S. Tucker
(18)
,
Marco P. Viero
(14)
,
Donald V. Wiebe
(19)
1
Physics Department, University of Puerto Rico
2 Cardiff University
3 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4 University of British Columbia [Vancouver]
5 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
7 ULISBOA - Universidade de Lisboa = University of Lisbon = Université de Lisbonne
8 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
9 INAF-OAR - INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma
10 Department of Physics, University of Miami
11 INAOE - Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica
12 CITA - Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
13 OAA - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
14 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
15 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
16 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
17 Università del Salento = University of Salento [Lecce]
18 Department of Physics, Brown University
19 Department of Physics, University of Toronto
2 Cardiff University
3 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4 University of British Columbia [Vancouver]
5 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
7 ULISBOA - Universidade de Lisboa = University of Lisbon = Université de Lisbonne
8 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
9 INAF-OAR - INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma
10 Department of Physics, University of Miami
11 INAOE - Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica
12 CITA - Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
13 OAA - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
14 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
15 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
16 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
17 Università del Salento = University of Salento [Lecce]
18 Department of Physics, Brown University
19 Department of Physics, University of Toronto
Résumé
The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) carried out a 250, 350, and 500 mum survey of the galactic plane encompassing the Vela Molecular Ridge, with the primary goal of identifying the coldest dense cores possibly associated with the earliest stages of star formation. Here, we present the results from observations of the Vela-D region, covering about 4 deg2, in which we find 141 BLAST cores. We exploit existing data taken with the Spitzer MIPS, IRAC, and SEST-SIMBA instruments to constrain their (single-temperature) spectral energy distributions, assuming a dust emissivity index beta = 2.0. This combination of data allows us to determine the temperature, luminosity, and mass of each BLAST core, and also enables us to separate starless from protostellar sources. We also analyze the effects that the uncertainties on the derived physical parameters of the individual sources have on the overall physical properties of starless and protostellar cores, and we find that there appear to be a smooth transition from the pre- to the protostellar phase. In particular, for protostellar cores we find a correlation between the MIPS24 flux, associated with the central protostar, and the temperature of the dust envelope. We also find that the core mass function of the Vela-D cores has a slope consistent with other similar (sub)millimeter surveys.