Which are the youngest protostars? Determining properties of confirmed and candidate Class0 sources by broad-band photometry

Abstract

We searched the literature to obtain a complete list of known Class0 sources. A list of 95 confirmed or candidate objects was compiled. To the best of our knowledge, all published broad-band observations from 1mu to 3.5mm have been collected and are assembled in a catalogue. These data were used to determine physical properties (T_bol, L_bol, L_smm/L_bol, M_env) and for a uniform classification. 50 sources possess sufficient observational data and are classified as Class0 or Class0/1 objects. The source properties are compared with different evolutionary models to infer ages and masses, and their correlations are investigated. About 25% of the sources are found to be in a quiet accretion phase or possess a significantly different time evolution of the accretion rate than the average. In Taurus, with its isolated star formation mode, this seems especially to be the case.

21 pages including 2 figures and 4 tables, accepted by ApJS, data available at http://www.dias.ie/protostars