l Laboratory for Millimeter-wave Astronomy | Shaye Storm's Research

Shaye Storm's Research

Shaye Storm

I am studying low-mass star formation in the molecular clouds and cores of the Milky Way across multiple wavelengths using data from Spitzer, CARMA, and the EVLA. Some questions I am trying to answer include: How does material accrete from the disk of a YSO onto the newly forming star? What is the timescale of grain growth within the envelopes and disks of newly forming stars? How do prestellar cores form within the molecular cloud environment?

ADS Listing for past 5 years

YSO Variability with Spitzer
I am using multi-epoch data from the Cores-to-Disks (c2d) and Gould's Belt (GB) Spitzer Legacy Projects to characterize the mid-infrared variability of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) over a range of timescales and formation environments. The search for variability among the youngest objects in the mid-infrared will provide information about accretion mechanisms in embedded systems. The star-forming region IC 5146 (pictured to the right) is an example environment where we are studying variability. IC 5146 is at a distance of 1 kpc towards the constellation Cygnus and has over 100 YSOs.

Grain Growth in the Disk and Envelope of YSOs with CARMA and EVLA
We are in the process of acquiring CARMA and EVLA data to measure dust emissivity from YSOs that span different stages evolution to understand grain growth in disks and envelopes of young stars. We will model the data from the younger systems that still have strong emission from a natal envelope to derive the emissivity versus wavelength and to explore the dependence of emissivity as a function of radial position in the YSO envelope.

NGC1333

Mapping NGC 1333 with 23-element CARMA
NGC 1333 is a prototypical environment for studying low-mass star formation; it is close to Earth (~250 pc) and has bright emission from mid-infrared to millimeter wavelengths arising from young stars heating surrounding dust. We used CARMA to map a large portion of the cloud in 3 mm continuum, HCN, HCO+, and N2H+. The interferometry data from the 6 and 10 m dishes provides high angular resolution to study the concentrated regions of star formation, while the interferometry data from the tightly spaced 3.5 m CARMA dishes combined with the single-dish data from the 10 m dishes provide details of the broad emission from star formation. The intensity map to the left shows HCN(1-0) emission from a single spectral channel. I hope to use the final continuum and spectral maps in concert with previous shorter wavelength surveys to understand how cores form from the more diffuse cloud environment.


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