Related papers: An Evolutionary Timeline for High-mass Star Format…
Most stars form in dense star clusters deeply embedded in residual gas. These objects must therefore be seen as the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. With this contribution some physical processes that act in the very early and also…
This paper is a review and an update on recent work on the physical and chemical structure of the envelopes of newly born massive stars, at the stages preceding ultracompact H II regions. It discusses methods and results to determine total…
The transfer of circumstellar disk mass and momentum onto the protostar and out into the environment occurs via a variety of mechanisms including magnetospheric accretion, jets, outflows, and disk winds. The interplay of these processes…
The Chandra X-ray Observatory is providing remarkable new views of massive star-forming regions, revealing all stages in the life cycle of high-mass stars and their effects on their surroundings. We present a Chandra tour of several…
This paper addresses the questions of what we have learned about how and when dense star clusters form, and what studies of star clusters have revealed about galaxy formation and evolution. One important observation is that globular…
Quantification of the Galaxy's star formation history involves both the duration and the rate of formation, with these parameters being known with different precision for different populations. The early rate of star formation is knowable…
The near infrared (1-2um) and the thermal infrared (3-25um) trace many of the environments in which masers are thought to reside, including shocks, outflows, accretion disks, and the dense medium near protostars. After a number of recent…
We describe how star formation is expected to proceed in the early metal-free Universe, focusing on the very first generations of stars. We then discuss how the star formation process may change as the effects of metallicity, external…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
Studies of molecular clouds and young stars near the sun have provided invaluable insights into the process of star formation. Indeed, much of our physical understanding of this topic has been derived from such studies. Perhaps the two most…
Observations of star formation rates (SFRs) in galaxies provide vital clues to the physical nature of the Hubble sequence, and are key probes of the evolutionary properties of galaxies. The focus of this review is on the broad patterns in…
The interplay between the ISM and the massive stars formed in clusters and, more generally, in recent events of star formation is reviewed via the global effects each has on the other. The pre-existing environment affects the properties of…
We address the question of whether the formation of high-mass stars is similar to or differs from that of solar-mass stars through new molecular line observations and modeling of the accretion flow around the massive protostar…
A large deep and nearly complete B<24.5 redshift sample is used to measure the change in distribution function of the stellar mass production rate in individual galaxies with redshift. The evolution of the star formation rate distribution…
In this last decade, our knowledge of evolutionary and structural properties of stars of different mass and chemical composition is significantly improved. This result has been achieved as a consequence of our improved capability in…
Stars and star clusters 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…
The formation of a star is a dynamic process fed by the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud core. Theoretical models and observations suggest that the majority of this infalling material settles into a protoplanetary disk before…
We study the long-term evolution of the Milky Way (MW) over cosmic time by modeling the star formation, cosmic rays, metallicity, stellar dynamics, outflows and inflows of the galactic system to obtain various insights into the galactic…
Galactic disk formation requires knowledge about the initial conditions under which disk galaxies form, the boundary conditions that affect their secular evolution and the micro-physical processes that drive the multi-phase interstellar…
Processes that promote the formation of dense cold clouds in the interstellar media of galaxies are reviewed. Those that involve background stellar mass include two-fluid instabilities, spiral density wave shocking, and bar accretion. Young…