The Stellar Population of RCW 38

Author(s)

S. Wolk, B. Spitzbart, T. Bourke, J. Alves

Abstract

We report on results of a 96.7 ks Chandra observation of one of the

youngest, most embedded and massive young stellar clusters studied to

date in X-rays -- RCW 38. In addition to its mass and youth, this

cluster is remarkable due to its extended X-ray emission which is

surrounded by a continuum radio ring. With Chandra, we detect 485 point

sources ranging down to a sensitivity limit of ˜ 1028

ergs s-1. Of these sources, about 200 appear to be cluster

members and most of these have IR counterparts in our VLT data. We have

modeled the coronae as Raymond-Smith plasmas. We find that the column

densities vary from 1020 to 1023 NH and

temperature varies from 0.2 to 8 keV. Five percent of the sources

exhibit flares while about 30% are classified as variable.

We acknowledge support from CXC contract (NAS8-39073) and and NASA/CXC

grant GO2-3105X.

Organisation(s)

Department of Astrophysics

External organisation(s)

Joint ALMA Observatory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Journal

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society

Volume

Pages

1219

ISSN

0002-7537

Publication date

12-2003

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103004 Astrophysics

Portal url