Effects of Star Formation and Stellar Death on Interstellar Gas Associated with Cep OB2
Abstract
Interstellar clouds that give birth to stars are subsequently affected by those stars. In particular, massive stars, through their stellar winds, intense ultraviolet radiation, and their terminal supernovae explosions, contribute to the dispersal of the clouds and seed the clouds with newly synthesized elements. In order to understand the details of cloud dispersal, on the one hand, and chemical evolution, on the other, in a site of star formation, the interstellar material toward stars in Cep OB2 will be probed through a study of absorption lines. After three episodes of star formation, the material in front of Cep OB2 is all that remains of the original molecular cloud. Analysis of H_2 absorption will yield information on the physical conditions for the material; gas temperature and incident ultraviolet flux will be extracted from the measurements. These derived quantities will help constrain models of the evolution of interstellar clouds on Galactic scales. A search for the F small I resonance line at 954 AA will establish the interstellar F abundance, which may be used to resolve the origin of this element is F synthesized primarily in Type II supernovae, whose effects should be revealed in a region of ongoing massive star formation, or in asymptotic giant branch stars
- Publication:
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FUSE Proposal
- Pub Date:
- 2001
- Bibcode:
- 2001fuse.prop.B030F
- Keywords:
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- FUSE Proposal ID #B030