EPoS Contribution
EPoS Contribution
Reality Check: Are we using the correct measurements to interpret star formation processes?

Christine Koepferl
U St Andrews, St Andrews, GB
The field of star formation still has many open questions, especially regarding the actual transformation from gas to stars. Therefore, it is crucial that the measured properties, which are used to interpret observations of this transition, are reliable. In this talk, I will present our results of detailed studies using our large dataset of realistic synthetic observations, from the infrared to the millimetre (SPITZER, HERSCHEL, SMA, ALMA). We have generated synthetic observations from simulations with different implementations of stellar feedback and will present an extensive set of synthetic observations of star-forming regions of different sizes and evolutionary stages, focusing on dust emission. We will present evolutionary diagrams of star-forming objects from the synthetic observations and discuss our findings on the accuracy of measured star-formation properties. We will further show our findings on the accuracy of measured star-formation properties. We focused on methods which are commonly applied by observers as modified blackbody fitting for the gas mass and direct & indirect tracers for the star-formation rate. As an example, we found that common methods to infer the star-formation rate from indirect diffuse tracers can lead to an overestimate of several orders.
Caption: (Left) Visualisation of SPH simulations from Dale et al. (2014) of a star-forming region which experiences high-mass stellar feedback in form of ionisation and stellar winds. (Right) One of 5800 realistic synthetic observations constructed from the SPH simulations with use of the radiative transfer code HYPERION (Robitaille 2011) and the FluxCompensator (Koepferl & Robitaille, in prep.) to mimic effects as introduced by telescope and detector.
Collaborators:
T. Robitaille, MPIA, DE
J. Dale, USM, DE
C. Cyganowski, U St Andrews, DE
R. Smith, Manchester U, GB
F. Biscani, MPIA, DE
Suggested Session: Galactic Star Formation