Related papers: The Early Evolution of Massive Stars: Radio Recomb…
We observed radio recombination lines (RRLs) toward the W51 molecular cloud complex, one of the most active star forming regions in our Galaxy. The UV radiation from young massive stars ionizes gas surrounding them to produce HII regions.…
High-mass stars form in much richer environments than those associated with isolated low-mass stars, and once they reach a certain mass, produce ionised (HII) regions. The formation of these pockets of ionised gas are unique to the…
The hypothesis that massive stars form by accretion can be investigated by simple analytical calculations that describe the effect that the formation of a massive star has on its own accretion flow. Within a simple accretion model that…
We have observed seven ultracompact HII regions in hydrogen recombination lines in the millimeter band. Toward four of these regions, there is a high velocity (full width to half maximum 60-80 km/s) component in the line profiles. The high…
HII regions made of gas ionized by radiations from young massive stars, are widely distributed in the Milky Way. They are tracers for star formation, and their distributions are correlated with the Galactic spiral structure. Radio…
Aims. We are trying to probe conditions in the youngest super star clusters, those still embedded in dense obscuring clouds. Methods. The hydrogen recombination lines in the radio and infrared can be observed through the obscuration, as the…
Massive star formation requires the accretion of gas at high rate while the star is already bright. Its actual luminosity depends sensitively on the stellar structure. We compute pre-main-sequence tracks for massive and intermediate-mass…
HII regions are the ionized spheres surrounding high-mass stars. They are ideal targets for tracing Galactic structure because they are predominantly found in spiral arms and have high luminosities at infrared and radio wavelengths. In the…
In recent years, a number of extragalactic massive star clusters that are still deeply embedded in their birth material have been discovered. These objects represent the youngest stage of massive star cluster evolution yet observed, and the…
Radio recombination lines (RRL) at 8 GHz and 15 GHz detected from four starburst galaxies are shown to arise in compact high density HII regions, which are undetectable below ~4 GHz. Detection of an RRL at 1.4 GHz towards one galaxy and…
Recent observations and simulations have suggested that HII regions around massive stars may vary in their size and emitted flux on timescales short enough to be observed. This variability can have a number of causes, ranging from…
If massive stars form by disk accretion, then bipolar outflows should be generated as in the case of low-mass star formation. High accretion rates lead to high outflow rates and make the wind density very large near the protostar. We…
We consider some aspects of the evolution of massive stars which can only be elucidated by means of "indirect" observations, i.e. measurements of the effects of massive stars on their environments. We discuss in detail the early evolution…
Ultracompact HII regions are signposts of massive star formation and their properties provide diagnostics for the characteristics of very young O stars embedded in molecular clouds. While radio observations have given us a good picture of…
We summarize the status of our program of near-infrared adaptive optics observations of ultracompact HII regions. By means of selected results we demonstrate the usefulness of this technique for disentangling the complexity of massive…
We review the phenomenon of ultra-compact H II regions (UCHIIs) as a key phase in the early lives of massive stars. This most visible manifestation of massive star formation begins when the Lyman continuum output from the massive young…
We present observations of the H91$\alpha$ recombination line emission towards a sample of nine HII regions associated with 6.7-GHz methanol masers, and report arcsecond-scale emission around compact cores. We derive physical parameters for…
Super Star Clusters are one of the most extreme star forming environments in the universe, and the most massive and dense of these may be proto globular clusters. Like individual massive stars, the earliest stages of super star cluster…
Previous observations show that the hypercompact HII region W51e2 is surrounded by a massive molecular accretion flow centered on the HII region. New observations of the H53alpha radio recombination line made with the VLA at 0.45 arc second…
Studies of Galactic HII regions are of crucial importance for studying star formation and the evolution of the interstellar medium. Gaining an insight into their physical characteristics contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of…