An Investigation of the Loss of Planet-Forming Potential in Intermediate
  Sized Young Embedded Star Clusters
  A large fraction of stars forming in our galaxy are born within clusters
embedded in giant molecular clouds. In these environments, the background UV
radiation fields impinging upon circumstellar disks can often dominate over the
radiation fields produced by each disk's central star. As a result, this
background radiation can drive the evaporation of circumstellar disks and lead
to the loss of planet forming potential within a cluster. This paper presents a
detailed analysis of this process for clusters whose stellar membership falls
within the range $100 \le N \le 1000$. For these intermediate-sized clusters,
the background UV field is often dominated by the most massive stellar member.
Due to the steep slope of the initial mass function, the amount of background
UV light that bathes clusters of similar size displays significant variance. As
a result, we perform a statistical analysis of this problem by calculating
distributions of FUV flux values impinging upon star/disk systems for several
cluster scenarios. We find that in the absence of dust attenuation, giant
planet formation would likely be inhibited in approximately half of systems
forming within intermediate-sized clusters regardless of stellar membership. In
contrast, the presence of dust can significantly lower this value, with the
effect considerably more pronounced in more populated clusters.
