Related papers: Modeling High-Mass Star Formation and Ultracompact…
In this chapter I review theoretical models for the formation of very massive stars. After a brief overview of some relevant observations, I spend the bulk of the chapter describing two possible routes to the formation of very massive…
We present semi-analytic dynamical models for giant molecular clouds evolving under the influence of HII regions launched by newborn star clusters. In contrast to previous work, we neither assume that clouds are in virial or energetic…
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…
At the earliest evolutionary stages, massive star-forming regions are deeply embedded within their natal cores and not observable at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Interferometric high-spatial resolution mm dust continuum…
Infrared shells and bubbles are ubiquitous in the Galaxy and can generally be associated with HII regions formed around young, massive stars. In this paper, we use high-resolution 3D SPH simulations to explore the effect of a single O7 star…
Studies of evolved massive stars indicate that they form in a clustered mode. During the earliest evolutionary stages, these regions are embedded within their natal cores. Here, we show high-spatial-resolution interferometric dust continuum…
Star formation occurs within dense regions of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), however, exactly how gas collects and evolves to form individual stars and what role dense cores play remains unclear. We use the Lagrangian cell information in…
Ultracompact and hypercompact HII regions appear when a star with a mass larger than about 15 solar masses starts to ionize its own environment. Recent observations of time variability in these objects are one of the pieces of evidence that…
Radiative feedback from massive Population III (Pop III) stars in the form of ionising and photodissociating photons is widely believed to play a central role in shutting off accretion onto these stars. Understanding whether and how this…
Massive stars produce so much light that the radiation pressure they exert on the gas and dust around them is stronger than their gravitational attraction, a condition that has long been expected to prevent them from growing by accretion.…
We analytically investigate the formation of an HII region in the accreting envelope of a newborn star. Special care is taken to examine the role of ionizing radiation force. This effect modifies velocity and density distributions and…
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 show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star forming clumps, such as those observed…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
Young massive stars or clusters are often observed at the peripheries of HII regions. What triggers star formation at such locations? Among the scenarios that have been proposed, the `collect and collapse' process is particularly attractive…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
Molecular clouds, the birthplaces of stars in galaxies, form dynamically from the diffuse atomic gas of the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is also threaded by magnetic fields which have a large impact on its dynamics. In particular,…
It has been proposed that some hot molecular cores (HMCs) harbor a young embedded massive star, which heats an infalling envelope and accretes mass at a rate high enough to ``choke off'' an incipient HII region. This class of HMCs would…
We present measurements of the masses associated with $\sim18,000$ HII regions across 19 nearby star-forming galaxies by combining data from JWST, HST, MUSE, ALMA, VLA, and MeerKAT from the multi-wavelength PHANGS survey. We report 10…
Cosmology requires at least half of the baryons in the Universe to be in the intergalactic medium, much of which is believed to form hot coronae around galaxies. Star-forming galaxies must be accreting from their coronae. HI observations of…