EPoS
EPoS Contribution

The Kinematics of Filaments and Their Role in High-Mass Star Formation

Cara Battersby
Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Filaments have gained a lot of attention in the last few years as their ubiquity in star-forming regions becomes universally acknowledged. Through systematic analysis of a large sample of filaments, we investigate their context, preponderance, and importance in high-mass star formation. We have selected a statistically significant, relatively unbiased sample of dense pre- to star-forming clumps and filaments. Through an analysis of their large-scale kinematics using the H2O southern Galactic Plane Survey (HOPS), we address quantitatively the prevalence of filaments in high-mass star formation and whether or not there is a global trend for converging flows along filaments. We identify a sample of "pole-on" filaments and discuss filament orientation as a function of Galactic location. We compare the large-scale filament kinematics with high-resolution ammonia data from the EVLA on a quiescent hub/filament group.
Collaborators:
S. Longmore, ESO, Germany
E. Schisano, INAF-IFSI, Italy
J. Bally, CU-Boulder, USA
A. Ginsburg, CU-Boulder, USA
A. Walsh, JCU, Australia
E. Bresert, ESO, Germany
L. Testi, ESO, Germany
J. Rathborne, CSIRO, Australia
J. M. Jackson, BU, USA
S. Molinari, INAF-IFSI, Italy