Related papers: A hot compact dust disk around a massive young ste…

The processes leading to the birth of low-mass stars such as our Sun have been well studied, but the formation of high-mass (> 8 x Sun's mass) stars has heretofore remained poorly understood. Recent observational studies suggest that…

Solar-mass stars form via circumstellar disk accretion (disk-mediated accretion). Recent findings indicate that this process is likely episodic in the form of accretion bursts, possibly caused by disk fragmentation. Although it cannot be…

We investigate the structure of accretion disks around massive protostar applying steady state models of thin disks. The thin disk equations are solved with proper opacities for dust and gas taking into account the huge temperature…

It is well established that Solar-mass stars gain mass via disk accretion, until the mass reservoir of the disk is exhausted and dispersed, or condenses into planetesimals. Accretion disks are intimately coupled with mass ejection via polar…

Dusty disks around young stars are formed out of interstellar dust that consists of amorphous, submicrometre grains. Yet the grains found in comets and meteorites, and traced in the spectra of young stars, include large crystalline grains…

Accretion disks are one of the key ingredients of the star formation process. They redistribute angular momentum and, in the case of high-mass stars (M > 8Msun), disks would relieve the radiation pressure on the accreting material, in…

We review recent advances in our understanding of the innermost regions of the circumstellar environment around young stars, made possible by the technique of long baseline interferometry at infrared wavelengths. Near-infrared observations…

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 disks that surround young stars are mostly composed of molecular gas, which is harder to detect and interpret than the accompanying dust. Disk mass measurements have therefore relied on large and uncertain extrapolations from the dust…

A star forms when a cloud of dust and gas collapses. It is generally believed that this collapse first produces a flattened rotating disk, through which matter is fed onto the embryonic star at the center of the disk. When the temperature…

There is increasing evidence that low mass stars with circumstellar disks can be born close to massive stars, in some cases within tenths of a pc. If the disks have lifetimes greater than those of the more massive stars, they are exposed to…

In the initial formation stages young stars must acquire a significant fraction of their mass by accretion from a circumstellar disk that forms in the center of a collapsing protostellar cloud. Throughout this period mass accretion rates…

The imaging of disks around young stars presents extreme challenges in high dynamic range, angular resolution, and sensitivity. Recent instrumental advances have met these challenges admirably, leading to a marked increase in imaging…

We present multi-wavelengths observations and a radiative transfer model of a newly discovered massive circumstellar disk of gas and dust which is one of the largest disks known today. Seen almost edge-on, the disk is resolved in…

A model for massive stars is constructed by piecing together evolutionary algorithms for the protostellar structure, the environment, the inflow and the radiation feedback. We investigate specified accretion histories of constant,…

Due to the recent dramatic technological advances, infrared interferometry can now be applied to new classes of objects, resulting in exciting new science prospects, for instance, in the area of high-mass star formation. Although…

We calculate numerically the collapse of slowly rotating, non-magnetic, massive molecular clumps, which conceivably could lead to the formation of massive stars. Because radiative acceleration on dust grains plays a critical role in the…

We revisit the nature of large dips in flux from extinction by dusty circumstellar material that is observed by Kepler for many young stars in the Upper Sco and $\rho$ Oph star formation regions. These young, low-mass "dipper" stars are…

The recent identification of one or two sub-parsec disks of young, massive stars orbiting the ~4e6 solar mass black hole Sgr A* has prompted an "in-situ" scenario for star formation in disks of gas formed from a cloud captured from the…

We report on observations of circumstellar disks around young stars that have been obtained with the MIDI instrument, which is mounted on the VLT Interferometer and operates in the 10 micrometer atmospheric window. The maximum spatial…