Deep wide-field near-infrared survey of the Carina Nebula
  (abbreviated) We used HAWK-I at the ESO VLT to produce a near-infrared survey
of the Carina Nebula that is deep enough to detect the full low-mass stellar
population. The results of a recent deep X-ray survey are used to distinguish
between young stars in Carina and background contaminants. We find that the
ages of the low-mass stars (derived from color-magnitude diagrams of the
invidual cluster in the Carina Nebula) agree with previous age estimates for
the massive stars. About 3200 of the X-ray selected stars have masses >= 1
Msun; this number is in good agreement with extrapolations of the field IMF
based on the number of high-mass stars and shows that there is no deficit of
low-mass stars. The near-infrared excess fractions for the stellar populations
in Carina are lower than typical for other, less massive clusters of similar
age, suggesting a faster timescale of circumstellar disk dispersal than in the
more quiescent regions, most likely due to the very high level of massive star
feedback. Narrow-band images reveal six molecular hydrogen jets. However, none
of the optical HH objects shows molecular hydrogen emission, suggesting that
the jet-driving protostars are located very close to the edges of the globules
in which they are embedded. This adds strong support to the scenario that their
formation was triggered by the advancing ionization fronts.
