Mid infra red imaging of massive star birth environments . II : Giant H II regions

We conduct a Galactic census of Giant H II regions, based on the all sky 6cm dataset of Kuchar & Clark, plus the kinematic distances obtained by Russeil. From an inspection of mid-IR Mid-course Space Experiment (MSX) and far-IR IRAS Sky Survey Atlas images we identify a total of 56 GH II regions in the Milky Way, of which 15% (65%) can be seen at optical (near-IR) wavelengths. The mid to far-IR fluxes from each GH II region are measured, and sample the thermal emission from the ubiquitous dust present within the exciting clusters of OB stars, arising from the integrated luminosity of the hot stars heating the cluster dust, for which we obtain logL(IR)=5.5–7.3L⊙. The mid-IR 21μm spatial morphology is presented for each GH II region, and often indicates multiple emission sources, suggesting complicated cluster formation. IR colour-colour diagrams are presented, providing information about the temperature distribution and optical depth of the dust. For the clusters of our study, the dust is not optically thick to all the stellar radiation, thus the measured infra-red luminosity is lower than the Lbol. As the dust environment of a cluster begins to dissipate, the thermal emission and its optical depth ought to decrease even before the stars appreciably evolve. We see evidence of this in our empirical relationship between the integrated IR and Lyman continuum luminosities.