Bibcode
DOI
Franco, Jose; Shore, Steven N.; Tenorio-Tagle, Guillermo
Referencia bibliográfica
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 436, no. 2, p. 795-799
Fecha de publicación:
12
1994
Revista
Número de citas
99
Número de citas referidas
83
Descripción
Assuming that photoionization is the self-limiting process for continued
star formation, we estimate the maximum number of massive (OB) stars
that can form within a molecular cloud. The most efficient cloud
destruction mechanism in the early stages of H II region evolution is
the evaporation of the cloud by stars located near the cloud boundary.
The maximum number of OB stars is of order 1 per 104 solar
mass of average molecular gas, or 10 per 104 solar mass of
dense molecular gas. The resulting star-forming efficiencies within
cloud complexes range from 2% to 16% depending on both the location of
the stars in the cloud and the details of the initial mass function,
with an overall value of about 5% for average molecular gas.