| Name: | Vishwas Patel |
| Affiliation: | Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_164 |
| Title : | Revealing the Cosmic Cradle: Analyzing Galactic Young Stellar Clusters |
| Authors : | Vishwas.H. Patel-1, Joseph L. Hora-2, Matthew L. N. Ashby-2, Sarita Vig-1 |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1 Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram - 695547, India
2 Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge- MA 02138, United States |
| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Stars, Interstellar Medium, and Astrochemistry in Milky Way |
| Abstract : | The research in the field of star formation has traditionally concentrated on nearby clouds and the inner regions of the Galaxy. On the other hand, the outer Galaxy presents a distinctly different environment with low metallicity, lower average temperatures, and low-density molecular clouds, making it seemingly less conducive for active star formation. Winston et al.(2020) analyzed the GLIMPSE360 survey data and reported the presence of 47,263 unique Young Stellar Object (YSO) candidates in the outer Galactic plane. This endeavor led to the identification of 618 reliable YSO clusters. However, these findings were based on 2-dimensional clustering, underscoring the need to leverage the unprecedented precision of Gaia DR3 data for identifying new clusters and confirming YSO memberships. In our study, we accomplish this task through 5-dimensional clustering in astrometric space using unsupervised machine learning algorithms such as HDBSCAN and StarGO. Monte Carlo simulation along with HDBSCAN was used to account for the YSO distance uncertainties along with 5-dimensional clustering. This extended the search to distant outer galaxy YSOs and clusters with larger distance uncertainties. The results include the discovery of new clusters as well as new members in the previously identified clusters. Moreover, we analyze the known stars in clusters and ascertain their membership. Multiple catalogs, including Gaia (E)DR3, SFOG (Winston et al., 2020), PanSTARRS, VVV, Herschel, and SCUBA-II surveys, were utilized to construct the Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of YSOs confirmed as cluster members. A large grid of radiative transfer Robitaille models was then used to fit these SEDs and estimate the evolutionary stage of YSOs through the best-fit SED parameters. We analyze the initial mass function and cluster mass functions in the outer Galaxy star-forming regions and compare them to the nearby and inner Galactic regions. |
