Core mass function in high-mass star formation

We adopted a per core temperature using the temperature estimate from the point-process mapping Bayesian method (PPMAP). A power-law fit to the CMF of the sub-sample of cores above the 1.64 Msun completeness limit (330 cores) through the maximum likelihood estimate technique yields a slope of 1.97+/-0.06, which is significantly flatter than the 2.35 Salpeter slope. Assuming a self-similar mapping between the CMF and the IMF, this result implies that these 15 high-mass protoclusters will generate atypical IMFs.

This sample currently is the largest sample that was produced and analysed self-consistently, derived at matched physical resolution, with per core temperature estimates, and cores as massive as 150 Msun. We provide both the raw source extraction catalogues and the catalogues listing the source size, temperature, mass, spectral indices, and so on in the 15 protoclusters.