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Few dozens of young high mass stars orbit Sgr A* at distances as short as 0.1 parsec, where star formation should be quenched by the strong tidal shear from Sgr A*. The puzzling young stellar population is believed to come into existence in…
Contemporary theory holds that massive stars gather mass during their initial phases via accreting disk-like structures. However, conclusive evidence for disks has remained elusive for the most massive young objects. This is mainly due to…
By matching infrared-selected, massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) and compact HII regions in the RMS survey to massive clumps found in the submillimetre ATLASGAL survey, we have identified ~1000 embedded young massive stars between…
Star formation generally proceeds inside-out, with overdense regions inside protostellar cores collapsing rapidly and progressively less dense regions following later. Consequently, a small protostar will form early in the evolution of a…
The statistical properties of circumstellar disks around young stars are important for constraining theoretical models for the formation and early evolution of planetary systems. In this brief review, I survey the literature related to…
We discuss recent models on the evolution of massive stars at very low metallicity including the effects of rotation, magnetic fields and binarity. Very metal poor stars lose very little mass and angular momentum during the main sequence…
Mass accretion onto (proto-)stars at high accretion rates > 10^-4 M_sun/yr is expected in massive star formation. We study the evolution of massive protostars at such high rates by numerically solving the stellar structure equations. In…
We report the discovery of a group of apparently young CoRoT red-giant stars exhibiting enhanced [alpha/Fe] abundance ratios (as determined from APOGEE spectra) with respect to Solar values. Their existence is not explained by standard…
Newborn black holes in collapsing massive stars can be accompanied by a fallback disk. The accretion rate is typically super-Eddington and strong disk outflows are expected. Such outflows could be directly observed in some failed explosions…
The first stars fundamentally transformed the early universe by emitting the first light and by producing the first heavy elements. These effects were predetermined by the mass distribution of the first stars, which is thought to have been…
Massive stars are at the core of our observations of the Universe up to the reionization epoch, both through their intense ionizing fluxes and through the energetic end products that release fresh elements into the interstellar medium. Our…
The formation environment of stars in massive stellar clusters is similar to the environment of stars forming in galaxies at a redshift of 1 - 3, at the peak star formation rate density of the Universe. As massive clusters are still forming…
Most massive stars are born in binaries close enough for mass transfer episodes. These modify the appearance, structure, and future evolution of both stars. We compute the evolution of a 100-day period binary consisting initially of a 25 M…
The surroundings of massive protostars constitute an accretion disc which has numerically been shown to be subject to fragmentation and responsible for luminous accretion-driven outbursts. Moreover, it is suspected to produce close binary…
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…
Early stages of stellar birth comprise of a two-step process involving the formation of two hydrostatic cores. The second step of gravitational collapse sets the radiative efficiency and accretion rate of the young protostar. These two…
Rotation can have severe consequences for the evolution of massive stars. It is now considered as one of the main parameters, alongside mass and metallicity that determine the final fate of single stars. In massive, fast rotating stars…
Supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs) are X-ray binary systems with a supergiant companion and likely a neutron star, which show a fast ($\sim 10^3$ s) and high variability with a dynamic range up to $10^{5-6}$. Given their extreme…
The formation of supermassive stars is believed to be an essential intermediate step for the formation of the massive black hole seeds that become the supermassive black holes powering the quasars observed in the early Universe. Numerical…
The spatial distribution and lifetime of molecular gas in the inner regions of young circumstellar disks are key to understanding the formation of planetary systems. Gas-rich disks are observed to disperse in the first ~10 Myr, and recent…