Study of young stellar objects around SNR G18.8+0.3

TL;DR

This study investigates young stellar objects around SNR G18.8+0.3 by analyzing infrared data and molecular gas emissions, revealing star formation activity influenced by supernova remnant interactions.

Contribution

It combines infrared point source analysis with molecular gas observations to identify and characterize young stellar objects in a supernova remnant environment.

Findings

Identification of YSO candidates using IRAC and MIPS data.

Confirmation of star-forming activity in the molecular cloud.

Detection of molecular gas structures associated with star formation.

Abstract

In recent works, through observations of molecular lines, we found that the supernova remnant (SNR) G18.8+0.3 is interacting with a molecular cloud towards its southern edge. Also it has been proven the presence of several neighboring HII regions very likely located at the same distance as the remnant. The presence of dense molecular gas and the existence of shock fronts generated by the SNR and HII regions make this region an interesting scenario to study the population of young stellar objects. Thus, using the most modern colour criteria applied to the emission in the mid-infrared bands obtained from IRAC and MIPS on board Spitzer, we characterized all the point sources lying in this region. We analyzed the spectral energy distributions of sources that show signs of being young stellar objects in order to confirm their nature and derive stellar parameters. Additionally, we present a map of the $^{12}$CO J=3-2 emission obtained with the ASTE telescope towards one of the HII regions embedded in the molecular cloud. The molecular gas was studied with the aim to analyze whether the cloud is a potential site of star formation.