HII region G46.5-0.2: the interplay between ionizing radiation,
  molecular gas and star formation
  HII regions are particularly interesting because they can generate dense
layers of gas and dust, elongated columns or pillars of gas pointing towards
the ionizing sources, and cometary globules of dense gas, where triggered star
formation can occur. Understanding the interplay between the ionizing radiation
and the dense surrounding gas is very important to explain the origin of these
peculiar structures, and hence to characterize triggered star formation.
G46.5-0.2 (G46), a poorly studied galactic HII region located at about 4 kpc,
is an excellent target to perform this kind of studies. Using public molecular
data extracted from the Galactic Ring Survey (13CO J=1-0) and from the James
Clerk Maxwell Telescope data archive (12CO, 13CO, C18O J=3-2, HCO+ and HCN
J=4-3), and infrared data from the GLIMPSE and MIPSGAL surveys, we perform a
complete study of G46, its molecular environment and the young stellar objects
placed around it. We found that G46, probably excited by an O7V star, is
located close to the edge of the GRSMC G046.34-00.21 molecular cloud. It
presents a horse-shoe morphology opening in direction of the cloud. We observed
a filamentary structure in the molecular gas likely related to G46 and not
considerable molecular emission towards its open border. We found that about
10' towards the southwest of G46 there are some pillar-like features, shining
at 8 um and pointing towards the HII region open border. We propose that the
pillar-like features were carved and sculpted by the ionizing flux from G46. We
found several young stellar objects likely embedded in the molecular cloud
grouped in two main concentrations: one, closer to the G46 open border
consisting of Class II type sources, and other one mostly composed by Class I
type YSOs located just ahead the pillars-like features, strongly suggesting an
age gradient in the YSOs distribution.
