Massive star-forming regions multiwavelength study

For 17 of these regions, we present new distance measurements based on Gaia DR2 parallaxes. By fitting a multicomponent dust, blackbody, and power-law continuum model to the 3.6{mu}m through 10mm spectral energy distributions, we find that ~34% of Lyman continuum photons emitted by massive stars are absorbed by dust before contributing to the ionization of HII regions, while ~68% of the stellar bolometric luminosity is absorbed and reprocessed by dust in the HII regions and surrounding photodissociation regions.

The most luminous, infrared-bright regions that fully sample the upper stellar initial mass function (ionizing photon rates N_C_>=10^50^s^-1^ and dust-processed L_TIR_>=10^6.8^L_{sun}_) have on average higher percentages of absorbed Lyman continuum photons (~51%) and reprocessed starlight (~82%) compared to less luminous regions. Luminous HII regions show lower average polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) fractions than less luminous regions, implying that the strong radiation fields from early-type massive stars are efficient at destroying PAH molecules.