FUNA Lunch Talk:

Thomas Robitaille

Max Planck Insitute for Astronomy, Heidelberg

A new grid of model spectral energy distributions for young stellar objects

October 5

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

In 2006, I made available a grid of model spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for young stellar objects (YSOs) that has since been used by the community to model thousands of sources in nearby and more distant star forming regions in the Milky-Way and Magellanic clouds. In this talk I will present a new and much larger grid of model SEDs that addresses many issues with the original model grid, such as parameter space coverage, the dependence on stellar evolutionary tracks, and is well suited to modeling long-wavelength observations such as Herschel and longer-wavelength data. The new models were computed with HYPERION, a new Monte-Carlo radiative transfer code (Robitaille, 2011). I will present the design of the model grid, initial modeling results, and I will discuss some of the open issues and limitations in using model SEDs to interpret observations of YSOs.