Global star formation in the L1630 molecular cloud

The first systematic and coordinated surveys for both dense gas and young stellar objects within a single molecular cloud, the L1630 molecular cloud are compared. It is found that (1) star formation in the L1630 molecular cloud occurs almost exclusively within the dense gas; (2) star formation does not occur uniformly throughout the dense gas and is strongly favored in a few very massive dense cores, where efficient conversion of molecular gas into stars has resulted in the production of rich stellar clusters; and (3) high gas densities and high gas mass may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for the formation of star clusters since two of the five most massive dense cores in the cloud have very low levels of star formation activity.