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Description
Sensitive, imaging observations of the {lambda}1.1mm dust continuum emission from a 1deg^2^ area collected with the AzTEC bolometer camera on the Large Millimeter Telescope are presented. A catalogue of 1545 compact sources is constructed based on a Wiener-optimization filter. These sources are linked to larger clump structures identified in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. Hydrogen column densities are calculated for all sources and mass and mean volume densities are derived for the subset of sources for which kinematic distances can be assigned. The AzTEC sources are localized, high-density peaks within the massive clumps of molecular clouds and comprise 5-15 per cent of the clump mass. We examine the role of the gravitational instability in generating these fragments by comparing the mass of embedded AzTEC sources to the Jeans mass of the parent BGPS object. For sources with distances less than 6kpc the fragment masses are comparable to the clump Jeans mass, despite having isothermal Mach numbers between 1.6 and 7.2. AzTEC sources linked to ultra compact HII regions have mass surface densities greater than the critical value implied by the mass-size relationship of infrared dark clouds with high-mass star formation, while AzTEC sources associated with Class II methanol masers have mass surface densities greater than 0.7gcm^-2^ that approaches the proposed threshold required to form massive stars.
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