2011AJ....141..123A

The properties of molecular clouds associated with 10 H II regions were studied using CO observations. We identified 142 dense clumps within our sample and found that our sources are divided into two categories: those with clumps that show a power-law size-line-width relation (Type I) and those that do not show any relation (Type II). The clumps in the Type I sources have larger power-law indices than found in previous studies. The clumps in the Type II sources have larger line widths than do the clumps in the Type I sources. The mass M_LTE increases with ΔV for both ¹²CO and ¹³CO lines in Type I sources. No relation was found for Type II sources. Type II sources show evidence (such as outflows) of current active star formation within the clump and we suggest that the lack of a size-line-width relation is a sign of current active star formation. For both types of sources, no relation was found between volume density and size, but overall larger clumps have smaller volume density, indicating that smaller clumps are more evolved and have contracted to smaller sizes and higher densities. Massive clumps seem to have similar masses calculated by different methods but lower mass clumps have larger virial masses compared to velocity integrated (X-factor) and local thermodynamic equilibrium mass. We found no relation between mass distribution of the clumps and distance from the H II region ionization front, but a weak decrease of the excitation temperature with increasing distance from the ionized gas. The clumps in collected shells around the H II regions have slightly larger line widths but no relation was found between line width and distance from the H II region, which probably indicates that the internal dynamics of the clumps are not affected by the ionized gas. Internal sources of turbulence, such as outflows and stellar winds from young proto-stars, may have a more important role on the molecular gas dynamics. We suggest that large line width and larger size-line-width power-law indices are therefore the initial characteristics of clumps in massive star-forming clouds (e.g., our Type I sources) and that some may evolve into objects similar to our Type II sources, where local "second generation" stars are forming and eliminating the size-line-width relation.