Related papers: Variability of Deeply Embedded Protostars: A New D…
Star formation involves the flow of gas and dust within molecular clouds into protostars and young stellar objects (YSOs) due to gravity. Along the way, these flows are shaped significantly by many other mechanisms, including pressure,…
The formation and evolution of a circumstellar disk in magnetized cloud cores is investigated from prestellar core stage until sim 10^4 yr after protostar formation. In the circumstellar disk, fragmentation first occurs due to gravitational…
A star acquires much of its mass by accreting material from a disc. Accretion is probably not continuous but episodic. We have developed a method to include the effects of episodic accretion in simulations of star formation. Episodic…
The origin of disks surrounding young stars has direct implications for our understanding of the formation of planetary systems. In the interstellar clouds from which star form, angular momentum is regulated by magnetic fields, preventing…
There are now two dominant models of how stars form: gravitational collapse theory holds that star-forming molecular clumps, typically hundreds to thousands of solar masses in mass, fragment into gaseous cores that subsequently collapse to…
[Abridged] Star and planet formation are the complex outcomes of gravitational collapse and angular momentum transport mediated by protostellar and protoplanetary disks. In this review we focus on the role of gravitational instability in…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
We discuss star formation in the turbulent interstellar medium. We argue that morphological appearance and dynamical evolution of the gas is primarily determined by supersonic turbulence, and that stars form via a process we call…
The formation and evolution of the circumstellar disk in unmagnetized molecular clouds is investigated using three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations from the prestellar core until the end of the main accretion phase. In collapsing…
The hypothesis that massive stars form by accretion can be investigated by simple analytical calculations that describe the effect that the formation of a massive star has on its own accretion flow. Within a simple accretion model that…
Disc fragmentation provides an important mechanism for producing low mass stars in prestellar cores. Here, we describe Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations which show how populations of prestellar cores evolve into stars. We find the…
We present a model for the formation of massive ($M > 10 M_\odot$) stars through accretion-induced collisions in the cores of embedded dense stellar clusters. This model circumvents the problem of accreting onto a star whose luminosity is…
We present the latest development of the disk gravitational instability and fragmentation model, originally introduced by us to explain episodic accretion bursts in the early stages of star formation. Using our numerical hydrodynamics model…
Planet formation encompasses processes that span a remarkable 40 magnitudes in mass, ranging from collisions between micron-sized grains inherited from the ISM to the accretion of gas by giant planets. The planet formation process takes…
The early stages of the pre-Main-Sequence (PMS) evolution of young stars are characterized by a substantial interaction between the central star and the surrounding disk. Among the processes that take place, the accretion of material from…
Stars and their corresponding protoplanetary disks form in diverse environments. To account for these natural variations, we investigate the formation process around nine solar mass stars with a maximum resolution of 2 AU in a Giant…
Although fundamental for astrophysics, the processes that produce massive stars are not well understood. Large distances, high extinction, and short timescales of critical evolutionary phases make observations of these processes…
Observations suggest that star formation occurs in only one or two crossing times for a range of scales spanning a factor of 1000. These observations include (1) measurements of embedded cluster ages in comparison with the cloud core…
It is now a widely held view that, in their formation and early evolution, stars build up mass in bursts. The burst mode of star formation scenario proposes that the stars grow in mass via episodic accretion of fragments migrating from…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…