The Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. XIV. Physical Properties of Massive Starless and Star Forming Clumps

Abstract: We sort $4683$ molecular clouds between $10^\circ< \ell <65^\circ$ from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey based on observational diagnostics of star formation activity: compact $70$ $\mu{\rm m}$ sources, mid-IR color-selected YSOs, ${\rm H_2O}$ and ${\rm CH_3OH}$ masers, and UCHII regions. We also present a combined ${\rm NH_3}$-derived gas kinetic temperature and ${\rm H_2O}$ maser catalog for $1788$ clumps from our own GBT 100m observations and from the literature. We identify a subsample of $2223$ ($47.5\%$) starless clump candidates, the largest and most robust sample identified from a blind survey to date. Distributions of flux density, flux concentration, solid angle, kinetic temperature, column density, radius, and mass show strong ($>1$ dex) progressions when sorted by star formation indicator. The median starless clump candidate is marginally sub-virial ($\alpha \sim 0.7$) with $>75\%$ of clumps with known distance being gravitationally bound ($\alpha < 2$). These samples show a statistically significant increase in the median clump mass of $\Delta M \sim 170-370$ M$\odot$ from the starless candidates to clumps associated with protostars. This trend could be due to (i) mass growth of the clumps at $\dot{M}\sim200-440$ Msun Myr$^{-1}$ for an average free-fall $0.8$ Myr time-scale, (ii) a systematic factor of two increase in dust opacity from starless to protostellar phases, (iii) and/or a variation in the ratio of starless to protostellar clump lifetime that scales as $\sim M^{-0.4}$. By comparing to the observed number of ${\rm CH_3OH}$ maser containing clumps we estimate the phase-lifetime of massive ($M>10^3$ M$\odot$) starless clumps to be $0.37 \pm 0.08 \ {\rm Myr} \ (M/10^3 \ {\rm M}\odot)^{-1}$; the majority ($M<450$ M$\odot$) have phase-lifetimes longer than their average free-fall time.