Related papers: Understanding Accretion Outbursts in Massive Proto…
Stars may be assembled in large growth spurts, however the evidence for this hypothesis is circumstantial. Directly studying the accretion at the earliest phases of stellar growth is challenging because young stars are deeply embedded in…
Stars collect most of their mass during the protostellar stage, yet the accretion luminosity and stellar parameters, which are needed to compute the mass accretion rate, are poorly constrained for the youngest sources. The aim of this work…
Jets and outflows are key components of low-mass star formation, regulating accretion and shaping the surrounding molecular clouds. These flows, traced by molecular species at (sub)millimeter wavelengths (e.g., CO, SiO, SO, H$_2$CO, and…
Interstellar masers are unique probes of the environments in which they arise. In studies of high-mass star formation their primary function has been as signposts of these regions and they have been used as probes of the kinematics and…
Context. Due to the presence of magnetic fields, protostellar jets/outflows are a natural consequence of accretion onto protostars. They are expected to play an important role for star and protoplanetary disk formation. Aims. We aim to…
The closest examples of high-mass star birth occurs in deeply embedded environments at kiloparsec distances. Although much progress has been made, an observationally validated picture of the dominant processes which allows the central…
Variable accretion in young stellar objects reveals itself photometrically and spectroscopically over a continuum of timescales and amplitudes. Most dramatic are the large outbursts (e.g., FU Ori, V1647 Ori, and EX Lup type events), but…
Most protostars have luminosities that are fainter than expected from steady accretion over the protostellar lifetime. The solution to this problem may lie in episodic mass accretion -- prolonged periods of very low accretion punctuated by…
Studying outflows from young massive star-forming clusters allows one to deduce physical processes that lead to the formation of the most massive stars. I will review the current state of high-spatial-resolution interferometric (sub-)mm…
Formation of massive stars by accretion requires a high accretion rate of > 10^-4 M_sun/yr to overcome the radiation pressure barrier of the forming stars. Here, we study evolution of protostars accreting at such high rates, by solving the…
I review theoretical models of star formation and how they apply across the stellar mass spectrum. Several distinct theories are under active study for massive star formation, especially Turbulent Core Accretion, Competitive Accretion and…
Our mid-infrared and near-infrared surveys over the last five years have helped to strengthen and clarify the relationships between water, methanol, and OH masers and the star formation process. Our surveys show that maser emission seems to…
We carry out radiation hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of massive stars in the super-Eddington regime including both their radiative feedback and protostellar outflows. The calculations start from a prestellar core of dusty gas…
During star cluster formation, ongoing mass accretion is resisted by stellar feedback in the form of protostellar outflows from the low-mass stars and photo-ionization and radiation pressure feedback from the massive stars. We model the…
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 observational consequences of the merger scenario for massive star formation are explored and contrasted with the gradual accumulation of mass by accretion. Protostellar mergers may produce high luminosity infrared flares lasting years…
Outbursts of young stellar objects occur when the mass accretion rate suddenly increases. However, such outbursts are difficult to detect for deeply embedded protostars due to their thick envelope and the rarity of outbursts. The near-IR…
Massive protostars grow and evolve under the effect of rapid accretion of circumstellar gas and dust, falling at high rates ($\ge 10^{-4}$-$10^{-3}\, \rm M_{\odot}\, \rm yr^{-1}$). This mass infall has been shown, both numerically and…
Young stars exhibit variability due to changes in the gas accretion rate onto them, an effect that should be quite significant in the early stages of their formation. As protostars are embedded within their natal cloud, this variability may…
Using the HPC ressources of the state of Baden-W\"urttemberg, we modelled for the first time the luminous burst from a young massive star by accretion of material from its close environment. We found that the surroundings of young massive…