Related papers: The Bottom of the Main Sequence and Beyond: Specul…
We discuss the fragmentation of primordial gas clouds in the universe after decoupling. Comparing the time scale of collapse with that of fragmentation, we obtain the typical mass of a fragment both numerically and analytically. It is shown…
It is estimated that ~60% of all stars (including brown dwarfs) have masses below 0.2Msun. Currently, there is no consensus on how these objects form. I will briefly review the four main theories for the formation of low-mass objects:…
In this work we present IRAM-30m telescope observations of a sample of bulge-dominated galaxies with large dust lanes, which have had a recent minor merger. We find these galaxies are very gas rich, with H2 masses between 4x10^8 and 2x10^10…
We present a new analysis of the minimum mass for star formation, based on opacity-limited fragmentation. Our analysis differs from the standard one, which considers hierarchical fragmentation of a 3-D medium, and yields $M_{_{\rm MIN}}…
We investigate the evolution of cosmological low mass (low virial temperature) objects and the formation of the first luminous objects. First, the `cooling diagram' for low mass objects is shown. We assess the cooling rate taking into…
We review observable signatures of the first generation of stars and low-luminosity quasars, including the metal enrichment, radiation background, and dust opacity/emission that they produce. We compute the formation history of collapsed…
In the current cosmological model, only the three lightest elements were created in the first few minutes after the Big Bang; all other elements were produced later in stars. To date, however, heavy elements have been observed in all…
Aims: Understanding the fragmentation and collapse properties of the dense gas during the onset of high-mass star formation. Methods: We observed the massive (~800M_sun) starless gas clump IRDC18310-4 with the Plateau de Bure Interferometer…
We study the minimum mass of dark compact objects formed in dissipative dark-matter halos and show that the simple atomic-dark-matter model consistent with all current observations can create low-mass fragments that can evolve into compact…
The first stars in the Universe are predicted to have been much more massive than the Sun. Gravitational condensation accompanied by cooling of the primordial gas due to molecular hydrogen, yields a minimum fragmentation scale of a few…
We study the fragmentation of eight massive clumps using data from ATLASGAL 870 $\mu$m, SCUBA 850 and 450 $\mu$m, PdBI 1.3 and 3.5 mm, and probe the fragmentation from 1 pc to 0.01 pc scale. We find that the masses and the sizes of our…
This article synthesizes observational data from an extensive program aimed toward a comprehensive understanding of star formation in a low-mass star-forming molecular cloud. New observations and published data spanning from the centimeter…
Our first aim is to calculate the minimum mass for Primary Fragmentation in a variety of potential star-formation scenarios, i.e. (i) hierarchical fragmentation of a 3-D medium; (ii) one-shot, 2-D fragmentation of a shock-compressed layer;…
It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely independent of any particular model of…
Small-scale clumps of dark matter are gravitationally bounded structures that have masses comparable to or lower than stellar masses and consist of noninteracting or weakly interacting dark matter particles. In this paper, the current…
We investigate the thermal and dynamical evolution of primordial gas clouds in the universe after decoupling. Comparing the time-scale of dynamical evolution with that of fragmentation, we can estimate the typical fragmentation scale. We…
We present extensive calculations of the structure and the evolution of low-massstars in the range 0.07-0.8 $\msol$, for metallicities $-2.0\le \mh \le 0.0$. These calculations are based on the most recent description of the microphysics…
Full tests to stellar models below 1 Msun have been hindered until now by the scarce number of precise measurements of the stars' most fundamental parameters: their masses and radii. With the current observational techniques, the required…
Many questions in physical cosmology regarding the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, chemical enrichment, reionization, etc. are thought to be intimately related to the nature and evolution of pregalactic structure. In particular…
Dissipative dark matter arising from a hidden sector consisting of $N_{\rm sec}$ exact copies of the Standard Model is discussed. The particles from each sector interact with those from the other sectors by gravity and via the kinetic…