The Galactic Census of High- and Medium-mass Protostars. IV. Molecular Clump Radiative Transfer, Mass Distributions, Kinematics, and Dynamical Evolution

TL;DR

This study analyzes molecular cloud clumps in the Milky Way using radiative transfer and CO data, revealing complex kinematics, mass flows, and implications for cloud evolution and star formation efficiency.

Contribution

It provides a self-consistent radiative transfer analysis of over 300 massive clumps, updates the CO-to-H2 conversion law, and explores their kinematics and mass flow dynamics.

Findings

Most clumps are not dynamically uniform, showing accretion or dispersal.

Mass accretion rate correlates strongly with local surface density.

Clump evolution suggests long lifetimes and gravity-driven processes.

Abstract

We present $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O data as the next major release for the CHaMP project, an unbiased sample of Galactic molecular clouds in $l$ = 280$^{\circ}$-300$^{\circ}$. From a radiative transfer analysis, we self-consistently compute 3D cubes of optical depth, excitation temperature, and column density for $\sim$300 massive clumps, and update the $I_{\rm CO}$-dependent CO$\rightarrow$H$_2$ conversion law of Barnes et al (2015). For $N$ $\propto$ $I^p$, we find $p$ = 1.92$\pm$0.05 for the velocity-resolved conversion law aggregated over all clumps. A practical, integrated conversion law is $N_{\rm CO}$ = (4.0$\pm$0.3)$\times$10$^{19}$m$^{-2}$ $I_{\rm CO}^{1.27\pm0.02}$, confirming an overall 2$\times$ higher total molecular mass for Milky Way clouds, compared to the standard $X$ factor. We use these laws to compare the kinematics of clump interiors with their foreground $^{12}$CO envelopes, and find evidence that most clumps are not dynamically uniform: irregular portions seem to be either slowly accreting onto the interiors, or dispersing from them. We compute the spatially-resolved mass accretion/dispersal rate across all clumps, and map the local flow timescale. While these flows are not clearly correlated with clump structures, the inferred accretion rate is a statistically strong function of the local mass surface density $\Sigma$, suggesting near-exponential growth or loss of mass over effective timescales $\sim$30-50 Myr. At high enough $\Sigma$, accretion dominates, suggesting gravity plays an important role in both processes. If confirmed by numerical simulations, this sedimentation picture would support arguments for long clump lifetimes mediated by pressure confinement, with a terminal crescendo of star formation, suggesting a resolution to the 40-yr-old puzzle of the dynamical state of molecular clouds and their low star formation efficiency.