Related papers: Magnetic Fields and Massive Star Formation
Massive stars play an important role in the Universe. Unlike low-mass stars, the formation of these objects located at great distances is still unclear. It is expected to be governed by some combination of self-gravity, turbulence, and…
Most molecular clouds are filamentary or elongated. Among those forming low-mass stars, their long axes tend to be either parallel or perpendicular to the large-scale (10-100 pc) magnetic field (B-field) in the surrounding inter cloud…
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 present the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of linearly polarized 870 $\mu$m continuum emission at a resolution of $\sim$0.2$^{\prime\prime}$ (2000 au) toward the two massive clumps, Clump 1 and Clump 4,…
The role of outflows in the formation of stars and the protostellar disks that generate them is a central question in astrophysics. Outflows are associated with star formation across the entire stellar mass spectrum. In this review, we…
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,…
Cloud-cloud collisions are expected to trigger star formation by compressing gas into dense, gravitationally unstable regions. However, the role of magnetic fields in this process is unclear. We use SPH to model head-on collisions between…
The origin of the substantial magnetic fields that are found in galaxies and on even larger scales, such as in clusters of galaxies, is yet unclear. If the second-order couplings between photons and electrons are considered, then…
Massive OB stars play an important role in the evolution of molecular clouds and star forming regions. The OB stars both photo--ionize molecular gas as well as sweep up and compress interstellar gas through winds, ionization fronts, and…
We present preliminary numerical evidence that the physical conditions in high-mass star forming regions can arise from global gravitational infall, with the velocity dispersions being caused primarily by infall motions rather than random…
Star-forming gas clouds are strongly magnetized, and their ionization fractions are high enough to place them close to the regime of ideal magnetohydrodyamics on all but the smallest size scales. In this review we discuss the effects of…
The stellar mass spectrum is an important property of the stellar cluster and a fundamental quantity to understand our Universe. The fragmentation of diffuse molecular cloud into stars is subject to physical processes such as gravity,…
We review the properties of turbulent molecular clouds (MCs), focusing on the physical processes that influence star formation (SF). MC formation appears to occur during large-scale compression of the diffuse ISM driven by supernovae,…
Similar to their low-mass counterparts, massive stars likely form via the collapse of pre-stellar molecular cores. Recent observations suggest that most massive cores are subvirial (i.e., not supported by turbulence) and therefore are…
We report ALMA observations of polarized dust emission from the protostellar source Ser-emb 8 at a linear resolution of 140 au. Assuming models of dust-grain alignment hold, the observed polarization pattern gives a projected view of the…
The role of the magnetic field during protostellar collapse is poorly constrained from an observational point of view, although it could be significant if we believe state-of-the-art models of protostellar formation. We present polarimetric…
We estimate the polarized thermal dust emission from MHD simulations of protostellar collapse and outflow formation in order to investigate alignment of outflows with magnetic fields. The polarization maps indicate that alignment of an…
We present our current understanding of the formation and early evolution of protostars, protoplanetary disks, and the driving of outflows as dictated by the interplay of magnetic fields and partially ionized gas in molecular cloud cores.…
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…
Various types of magnetic fields occur in stars: small scale fields, large scale fields, and internal toroidal fields. While the latter may be ubiquitous in stars due to differential rotation, small scale fields (spots) may be associated…