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The fate of massive cold clumps, their internal structure and collapse need to be characterised to understand the initial conditions for the formation of high-mass stars, stellar systems, and the origin of associations and clusters. We…
The relative importance of primordial molecular cloud fragmentation versus large-scale accretion still remains to be assessed in the context of massive core/star formation. Studying the kinematics of the dense gas surrounding massive-star…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is fundamental for many areas of astrophysics, but its origin remains poorly understood. It may be inherited from the core mass function (CMF) or arise as a result of more chaotic, competitive…
We have proposed that the first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the Universe may be Dark Stars (DS), powered by dark matter heating rather than by nuclear fusion. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, which may be their own…
Starless dense cores eventually collapse dynamically, which forms protostars inside them, and the physical properties of the cores determine the nature of the forming protostars. We report ALMA observations of dust continuum emission and…
Linear analysis of the formation of protostellar cores in planar magnetic interstellar clouds shows that molecular clouds exhibit a preferred length scale for collapse that depends on the mass-to-flux ratio and neutral-ion collision time…
A fundamental issue in star formation is understanding the precise mechanisms leading to the formation of prestellar cores, and their subsequent gravitationally unstable evolution. To address this question, we carefully construct a suite of…
We present results from our numerical simulations of collapsing massive molecular cloud cores. These numerical calculations show that massive stars assemble quickly with mass accretion rates exceeding 10^-3 Msol/yr and confirm that the mass…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. Molecular cloud regions without turbulent driving sources, or where turbulence is driven…
Star formation in a filamentary infrared dark cloud (IRDC) is simulated over a dynamic range of 4.2 pc to 28 au for a period of $3.5\times 10^5$ yr, including magnetic fields and both radiative and outflow feedback from the protostars. At…
Understanding the physical properties of star-forming cores as mass reservoirs for protostars, and the impact of turbulence, is crucial in star formation studies. We implemented passive tracer particles in clump-scale numerical simulations…
We have performed a 1 square degree 1.2mm dust continuum survey in the rho Oph molecular cloud. We detect a number of previously unknown sources, ranging from extended cores over compact, starless cores to envelopes surrounding young…
Using data from the SCUBA Legacy Catalogue (850 um) and Spitzer Space Telescope (3.6 - 70 um), we explore dense cores in the Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, Serpens, and Orion molecular clouds. We develop a new method to discriminate…
We present a new assessment of the ability of Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) to form massive stars and clusters. This is done by comparison with an empirical mass-size threshold for massive star formation (MSF). We establish…
Massive stars play an important role in shaping the structure of galaxies. Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs), with their low temperatures and high densities, have been identified as the potential birthplaces of massive stars. In order to…
We use magnetohydrodynamical simulations of converging flows to investigate the process of molecular cloud formation and evolution out of the magnetised ISM. Here, we investigate whether the observed subcritical HI clouds can become…
We report the discovery of two very cold and massive molecular cloud cores in the region ISOSS J18364-0221. The object has been identified by a systematic search for very early evolutionary stages of high-mass stars using the 170 micron…
We study numerically the evolution of rotating cloud cores, from the collapse of a magnetically supercritical core to the formation of a protostar and the development of a protostellar disk during the main accretion phase. We find that the…
Dust grains coagulate into larger aggregates in dense gas. This changes their size distribution and possibly affects the thermal evolution of star-forming clouds. We here investigate dust coagulation in collapsing pre-stellar cores with…
The enormous radiative and mechanical luminosities of massive stars impact a vast range of scales and processes, from the reionization of the universe, to the evolution of galaxies, to the regulation of the interstellar medium, to the…