The Young Stellar Population in M17 Revealed by <i>Chandra</i>

We report here results from a Chandra ACIS observation of the stellar populations in and around the Messier 17 H II region. The field reveals 886 sources, 771 of which have stellar counterparts in infrared images. In addition to comprehensive tables of X-ray source properties, several results are presented: * The X-ray Luminosity Function is calibrated to that of the Orion Nebula Cluster population to infer a total population of roughly 8000--10,000 stars * About 40% of the ACIS sources are heavily obscured with A_V > 10 mag. Some are concentrated around well-studied star-forming regions but most are distributed across the field. X-ray emission is detected from 64 of the hundreds of Class I protostar candidates that can be identified by near- and mid-infrared colors. These constitute the most likely protostar candidates known in M17. * The spatial distribution of X-ray stars is complex: we find a new embedded cluster, a 2 pc-long arc of young stars along the southwest edge of the M17 H II region, and 0.1 pc substructure within various populations. These structures may indicate that the populations are dynamically young. * All (14/14) of the known O stars but only about half (19/34) of the known B0--B3 stars in the M17 field are detected. Six of these stars exhibit very hard thermal plasma components (kT>4 keV) that may be due to colliding wind binaries. More than 100 candidate new OB stars are found, including 28 X-ray detected intermediate- and high-mass protostar candidates with infrared excesses. * Only a small fraction (perhaps 10%) of X-ray selected high- and intermediate- mass stars exhibit K-band emitting protoplanetary disks, providing further evidence that inner disks evolve very rapidly around more massive stars.

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