Related papers: How do bound star clusters form?
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
I review the status of massive star formation theories: accretion from collapsing, massive, turbulent cores; competitive accretion; and stellar collisions. I conclude the observational and theoretical evidence favors the first of these…
Star formation occurs in hierarchical patterns in both space and time. Galaxies form large regions on the scale of the interstellar Jeans length and these large regions apparently fragment into giant molecular clouds and cloud cores in a…
Here we model a star forming factory in which the continuous creation of stars results in a highly concentrated, massive (globular cluster-like) stellar system. We show that under very general conditions a large-scale gravitational…
In young star clusters, the density can be high enough and the velocity dispersion low enough for stars to collide and merge with a significant probability. This has been suggested as a possible way to build up the high-mass portion of the…
We investigate the contraction of accreting protoclusters using an extension of n-body techniques that incorporates the accretional growth of stars from the gaseous reservoir in which they are embedded. Following on from Monte Carlo studies…
Properties of normal galactic star formation, including the density dependence, threshold density, turbulent scaling relations, and clustering properties, are applied to the formation of galactic bulges. One important difference is that the…
The process that leads to the formation and early evolution of low-mass stars is in a broad sense well understood theoretically and carefully traced observationally. The largest uncertainties in this framework reside in the poorly known…
The observed increase in star formation efficiency with average cloud density, from several percent in whole giant molecular clouds to ~30 or more in cluster-forming cores, can be understood as the result of hierarchical cloud structure if…
We investigate the triggering of star formation and the formation of stellar clusters in molecular clouds that form as the ISM passes through spiral shocks. The spiral shock compresses gas into $\sim$100 pc long main star formation ridge,…
The currently available empirical evidence on the star formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters, mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, strongly…
Turbulence, self-gravity, and cooling convert most of the interstellar medium into cloudy structures that form stars. Turbulence compresses the gas into clouds directly and it moves pre-existing clouds around passively when there are…
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…
Young, massive star clusters are the most notable and significant end products of violent star-forming episodes triggered by galaxy collisions, mergers, and close encounters. Their contribution to the total luminosity induced by such…
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…
Two main models coexist for the environment in which stars form. The clustered model stipulates that the bulk of star formation occurs within dense embedded clusters, but only a minority of them survive the residual gas expulsion phase…
We review progress over the past decade in observations of large-scale star formation, with a focus on the interface between extragalactic and Galactic studies. Methods of measuring gas contents and star formation rates are discussed, and…
We present the results of a numerical simulation in which star formation proceeds from an initially unbound molecular cloud core. The turbulent motions, which dominate the dynamics, dissipate in shocks leaving a quiescent region which…
The properties of old globular cluster systems (GCSs) in galaxy halos offer unique insight into the physical processes that conspire to form any generic star cluster, at any epoch. Presented here is a summary of the information obtained…
Young open clusters are our laboratories for studying high-mass star formation and evolution. Unfortunately, the information that they provide is difficult to interpret, and sometimes contradictory. In this contribution, I present a few…