ASSOCIATION OF INFRARED DARK CLOUD CORES WITH YSOS: STARLESS OR STARRED IRDC CORES

In this paper we examined the association of InfraRed Dark Cloud (IRDC) cores with YSOs and the geometric properties of the IRDC cores. For this study a total of 13,650 IRDC cores were collected mainly from the catalogs of the IRDC cores published from other studies and partially from our catalog of IRDC cores containing new 789 IRDC core candidates. The YSO candidates were searched for using the GLIMPSE, MSX, and IRAS point sources by the shape of their SED or using activity of water or methanol maser. The association of the IRDC cores with these YSOs was checked by their line-of-sight coincidence within the dimension of the IRDC core. This work found that a total of 4,110 IRDC cores have YSO candidates while 9,540 IRDC cores have no indication of the existence of YSOs. Considering the 12,200 IRDC cores within the GLIMPSE survey region for which the YSO candidates were determined with better sensitivity, we found that 4,098 IRDC cores (34%) have at least one YSO candidate and 1,072 cores among them seem to have embedded YSOs, while the rest; 8,102 (66%) have no YSO candidate. Therefore, the ratio of [N(IRDC core with protostars)]/[N(IRDC core without YSO)] for 12,200 IRDC cores is about 0.13. Taking into account this ratio and typical lifetime of high-mass embedded YSOs, we suggest that the IRDC cores would spend about 10(4)similar to 10(5) years to form high-mass stars. However, we should note that the GLIMPSE point sources have a. minimum detectable luminosity lof about 1.2 L(circle dot) at a typical IRDC core's distance of similar to 4 kpc. Therefore, the ratio given here should be a, lower limit and the estimated lifetime of starless IRDC cores can be an upper limit. The physical parameters of the IRDC cores somewhat vary depending on how many YSO candidates the IRDC cores contain. The IRDC cores with more YSOs tend to be larger, more elongated, and have better darkness contrast than the IRDC cores with fewer or no YSOs.