Related papers: Massive Star Formation: The Power of Interferometr…
We propose that supermassive stars may form in quasar accretion disks, and we discuss possible observational consequences. The structure and stability of very massive stars are reviewed. Because of high accretion rates, quasar disks are…
I review some important questions in the field of massive star formation: What are the initial conditions for proto star clusters and how do they arise? What are the initial conditions for individual massive star formation within star…
We use direct N-body simulations of gas embedded star clusters to study the importance of stellar collisions for the formation and mass accretion history of high-mass stars. Our clusters start in virial equilibrium as a mix of gas and…
Like their lower mass siblings, massive protostars can be expected to: a) be surrounded by circumstellar disks and b) launch magnetically-driven jets and outflows. The disk formation and global evolution is thereby controlled by advection…
The interstellar medium contains filamentary structure over a wide range of scales. Understanding the role of this structure, both as a conduit of gas across the scales and a diagnostic tool of local physics, is a major focus of star…
Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ~100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local…
How a star forms is a fundamental question in astrophysics. In the earliest stages of protostellar evolution high extinction prevents a direct study of the accretion processes and their temporal evolution. Monitoring the variations of the…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
Theory predicts and observations confirm that low-mass stars (like the Sun) in their early life grow by accreting gas from the surrounding material. But for stars ~ 10 times more massive than the Sun (~10 M_sun), the powerful stellar…
Background: low-mass stars are the dominant product of the star formation process, and they trace star formation over the full range of environments, from isolated globules to clusters in the central molecular zone. In the past two decades,…
This lecture reviews the fundamental physical processes involved in star formation in galaxy interactions and mergers. Interactions and mergers often drive intense starbursts, but the link between interstellar gas physics, large scale…
It is now a widely held view that, in their formation and early evolution, stars build up mass in bursts. The burst mode of star formation scenario proposes that the stars grow in mass via episodic accretion of fragments migrating from…
This review discusses recent results on the astrochemistry of (mostly high-mass) star-forming regions. After an introduction on the use of chemistry in astrophysics and some basic concepts of astrochemistry, specific results are presented.…
MATISSE represents a great opportunity to image the environment around massive and evolved stars. This will allow one to put constraints on the circumstellar structure, on the mass ejection of dust and its reorganization , and on the…
I review some recent work on low-mass star formation, with an emphasis on theory, basic principles, and unresolved questions. Star formation is both a gravitational fragmentation problem as well as an accretion problem. Molecular cloud…
Massive stars likely form by accretion and the evolutionary track of an accreting forming star corresponds to what is called the birthline in the HR diagram. The shape of this birthline is quite sensitive to the evolution of the entropy in…
The infrared represents an alternative wavelength regime in which to study the environments of maser emission, while at the same time complementing the information obtained through radio techniques. The near infrared (1-2 microns) yields…
The earliest phases of massive star formation are found in cold and dense infrared dark clouds (IRDCs). Since the detection method of IRDCs is very sensitive to the local properties of the background emission, we present here an alternative…
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
Forming massive stars launch outflows of magnetic origin, which in fact serve as a marker for finding sites of massive star formation. However, both the theoretical and observational study of the mechanisms that intervene in the formation…