Gas dynamical friction on prestellar clumps and open clusters

K. Indulekha1*, K. Ambili1 and C. J. Jog2
1School of Pure & Applied Physics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala 686 560, India
2Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560 012, India

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Abstract

Stars are seen to form in a clustered mode within molecular clouds in galaxies. While most of these clusters emerge as unbound associations, after the system loses gas due to momentum input from the stars that are born, a few percent of them emerge bound as open clusters. Since only less than ten percent of the mass of a cloud gets converted to stars, the formation of open clusters has been a puzzle. Observations have shown that some clusters can show significant mass segregation at a dynamically young age itself. Also, the brown dwarf stars associated with a cluster are seen distributed in a wider region compared to the core. Here, we examine whether gas dynamical friction, operating on prestellar objects in the embedded phase, holds the key to solving some of the puzzles associated with open clusters.



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Keywords : (Galaxy:) open clusters and associations: general – galaxies: star clusters – stars: pre-main-sequence