A compendium of distances to molecular clouds in the Star Formation Handbook

Autor(en)

Catherine Zucker, Joshua S. Speagle, Edward F. Schlafly, Gregory M. Green, Douglas P. Finkbeiner, Alyssa Goodman, João Alves

Abstrakt

Accurate distances to local molecular clouds are critical for understanding the star and planet formation process, yet distance measurements are often obtained inhomogeneously on a cloud-by-cloud basis. We have recently developed a method that combines stellar photometric data with Gaia DR2 parallax measurements in a Bayesian framework to infer the distances of nearby dust clouds to a typical accuracy of ∼5%. After refining the technique to target lower latitudes and incorporating deep optical data from DECam in the southern Galactic plane, we have derived a catalog of distances to molecular clouds in Reipurth (2008, Star Formation Handbook, Vols. I and II) which contains a large fraction of the molecular material in the solar neighborhood. Comparison with distances derived from maser parallax measurements towards the same clouds shows our method produces consistent distances with ≲10% scatter for clouds across our entire distance spectrum (150 pc−2.5 kpc). We hope this catalog of homogeneous distances will serve as a baseline for future work.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Astrophysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Harvard University

Journal

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Band

633

Anzahl der Seiten

16

ISSN

0004-6361

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936145

Publikationsdatum

01-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103003 Astronomie, 103004 Astrophysik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/22cf0a80-d69b-447e-b485-4cad1c0bd674