Star formation in the HII regions RCW 38, RCW 36, and RCW 108

Abstract

I present 1.2 mm observations of the HII regions RCW 38, RCW 36, and RCW 108 which reveal the distributions of dust associated with the three regions. The dust emission in RCW 38 exhibits a ring like structure centered around an O-star. A bright knot in the ring was determined to contain 15% of the total dust by mass in the region and roughly coincided with regions of high emission at various infrared wavelengths as well as 6 cm continuum emission. The dust emission in RCW 36 extended along a ridge with a bright clump in the north of the ridge containing 70% of the mass of the entire cluster. The dust emission in RCW 108 is concentrated in a single tight knot with a faint extension to the south. The dust emission is compared to the infrared and radio emissions to attempt to describe the characteristics of possible areas of active star formation.