Related papers: Massive Star Formation: The Power of Interferometr…
Massive star-forming regions exhibit a rich chemistry with complex gas distributions, especially on small scales. While surveys have yielded constraints on typical gas conditions, they often have coarse spatial resolution and limited…
During star cluster formation, ongoing mass accretion is resisted by stellar feedback in the form of protostellar outflows from the low-mass stars and photo-ionization and radiation pressure feedback from the massive stars. We model the…
Massive stars are very rare, but their extreme luminosities make them both the only type of young star we can observe in distant galaxies and the dominant energy sources in the universe today. They form rarely because efficient radiative…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
This paper constructs an analytic description for the late stages of giant planet formation. During this phase of evolution, the planet gains the majority of its final mass through gas accretion at a rapid rate. This work determines the…
Observational advances over the last decade reveal that star formation is associated with the simultaneous presence of gravitationally collapsing gas, bipolar outflow, and an accretion disk. Two theoretical views of star formation suppose…
Massive stars and their supernovae are prominent sources of radioactive isotopes, the observations of which thus can help to improve our astrophysical models of those. Our understanding of stellar evolution and the final explosive endpoints…
We summarize the present status of the predictions of massive star models for the evolution of their surface properties. After discussing luminosity, temperature and chemical composition, we focus on the question whether massive stars may…
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…
We present radiation hydrodynamics simulations of the collapse of massive pre-stellar cores. We treat frequency dependent radiative feedback from stellar evolution and accretion luminosity at a numerical resolution down to 1.27 AU. In the…
We develop a model for the outer gravitationally unstable regions of accretion disks around massive black holes, for primeval or solar abundances. First we study star formation and evolution in a purely gaseous marginally unstable disk, and…
Near-infrared imaging surveys of high-mass star-forming regions reveal an amazingly complex interplay between star formation and the environment (Churchwell et al. 2006; Alvarez et al. 2004). By means of near-IR spectroscopy the embedded…
From stellar spectra, a variety of physical properties of stars can be derived. In particular, the chemical composition of stellar atmospheres can be inferred from absorption line analyses. These provide key information on large scales,…
The formation of massive stars is a long standing problem. Although a number of theories of massive star formation exist, ideas appear to converge to a disk-mediated accretion scenario. Here we present radiative hydrodynamic simulations of…
The physical mechanisms that set the initial rotation rates in massive stars are a crucial unknown in current star formation theory. Observations of young, massive stars provide evidence that they form in a similar fashion to their low-mass…
Galaxies grow their supermassive black holes in concert with their stars, although the relationship between these major galactic components is poorly understood. Observations of the cosmic growth of stars and black holes in galaxies suffer…
We present preliminary numerical evidence that the physical conditions in high-mass star forming regions can arise from global gravitational infall, with the velocity dispersions being caused primarily by infall motions rather than random…
We consider the effects of an outflow on radiation escaping from the infalling envelope around a massive protostar. Using numerical radiative transfer calculations, we show that outflows with properties comparable to those observed around…
Recent models and simulations of cluster formation within molecular clumps consider multi-scale, hierarchical accretion, which leads to clump mass growth over time. This mode of mass accumulation could have implications regarding the…