Open AccessYoung stellar population and star formation history ofW4 HII region/Cluster Complex
Author(s) -
Neelam Panwar
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
bulletin de la société royale des sciences de liège
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1783-5720
DOI - 10.25518/0037-9565.7700
Subject(s) - physics , star formation , stars , astrophysics , young stellar object , astronomy , sky , star cluster , molecular cloud , cluster (spacecraft) , stellar population , telescope , computer science , programming language
The HII region/cluster complex has been a subject of numerous investigations to study the feedback effect of massive stars on their surroundings. Massive stars not only alter the morphology of the parental molecular clouds, but also influence star formation, circumstellar disks and the mass function of low-mass stars in their vicinity. However, most of the studies of low-mass stellar content of the HII regions are limited only to the nearby regions. We study the star formation in the W4 HII region using deep optical observations obtained with the archival data from Canada - France - Hawaii Telescope, Two-Micron All Sky Survey, Spitzer, Herschel and Chandra. We investigate the spatial distribution of young stellar objects in the region, their association with the remnant molecular clouds, and search for the clustering to establish the sites of recent star formation. Our analysis suggests that the influence of massive stars on circumstellar disks is significant only to their immediate neighborhood. The spatial correlation of the young stars with the distribution of gas and dust of the complex indicate that the clusters would have formed in a large filamentary cloud. The observing facilities at the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), providing high-resolution spectral and imaging capabilities, will fulfill the major objectives in the study of HII regions.