Related papers: Comparison of Low-Mass and High-Mass Star Formatio…
The formation of low-mass stars in molecular clouds involves accretion disks and jets, which are of broad astrophysical interest. Accreting stars represent the closest examples of these phenomena. Star and planet formation are also…
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 formation of massive stars in close binary systems is complicated due to their high radiation pressure, the crowded environment and the expected minimum separation for fragmentation being many times greater than the orbital separation.…
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…
Young stars form on a wide range of scales, producing aggregates and clusters with various degrees of gravitational self-binding. The loose aggregates have a hierarchical structure in both space and time that resembles interstellar…
Extreme star formation includes star formation in starbursts and regions forming super star clusters. We survey the current problems in our understanding of the star formation process in starbursts and super star clusters - initial mass…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
Star formation is inefficient. Recent advances in numerical simulations and theoretical models of molecular clouds show that the combined effects of interstellar turbulence, magnetic fields and stellar feedback can explain the low…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
In order to distinguish between the various components of massive star forming regions (i.e. infalling, outflowing and rotating gas structures) within our own Galaxy, we require high angular resolution observations which are sensitive to…
We use direct N-body simulations of gas embedded star clusters to study the importance of stellar collisions for the formation and mass accretion history of high-mass stars. Our clusters start in virial equilibrium as a mix of gas and…
We perform calculations of pre-main sequence evolution of stars from 1 to $85 M_{\odot}$ with growing accretion rates $\dot{M}$. The values of $\dot{M}$ are taken equal to a constant fraction $\tilde{f}$ of the rates of the mass outflows…
Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds…
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,…
In this contribution we review our recent numerical work discussing the essential role of the local cluster environment in assembling massive stars. First we show that massive stars are formed from low mass pre-stellar cores and become…
The conditions required for massive star formation are debated, particularly whether massive stars must form in conjunction with massive clusters. Some authors have advanced the view that stars of any mass (below the total cluster mass) can…
Massive stars influence their surroundings through radiation, winds, and supernova explosions far out of proportion to their small numbers. However, the physical processes that initiate and govern the birth of massive stars remain poorly…
The mass distributions of dense cores in star-forming regions are measured to have a shape similar to the initial mass function of stars. This has been generally interpreted to mean that the constituent cores will form individual stars or…
The formation of high-mass stars is usually accompanied by powerful protostellar outflows. Such high-mass outflows are not simply scaled-up versions of their lower-mass counterparts, since observations suggest that the collimation degree…