Related papers: Star Formation Processes versus Planet Formation P…
The observation that old, massive galaxies have a larger fraction of low-mass stars than their younger, lower-mass counterparts adds to mounting evidence that star formation may have been different in the early Universe.
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…
With the increasing number of detected exoplanet samples, the statistical properties of planetary systems have become much clearer. In this review, we summarize the major statistics that have been revealed mainly by radial velocity and…
Young stars on their way to the ZAMS evolve in significantly different ways depending on mass. While the theoretical and observational properties of low- and intermediate-mass stars are rather well understood and/or empirically tested, the…
At the earliest evolutionary stages, massive star-forming regions are deeply embedded within their natal cores and not observable at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Interferometric high-spatial resolution mm dust continuum…
Star formation is thought to be triggered by gravitational collapse of the dense cores of molecular clouds. Angular momentum conservation during the collapse results in the progressive increase of the centrifugal force, which eventually…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
I review some recent work on low-mass star formation, with an emphasis on theory, basic principles, and unresolved questions. Star formation is both a gravitational fragmentation problem as well as an accretion problem. Molecular cloud…
The formation of massive stars is currently an unsolved problems in astrophysics. Understanding the formation of massive stars is essential because they dominate the luminous, kinematic, and chemical output of stars. Furthermore, their…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
There is observed a trend that a lower mass galaxy forms stars at a later epoch. This downsizing of star-forming galaxies has been attributed to hydrodynamical or radiative feedback processes that regulate star formation. However, here we…
The initial conditions, physics, and outcome of planet formation are now constrained by detailed observations of protoplanetary disks, laboratory experiments, and the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planetary systems. These…
The formation of compact objects like stars and black holes is strongly constrained by the requirement that nearly all of the initial angular momentum of the diffuse material from which they form must be removed or redistributed during the…
Understanding the physics of how stars form is a highly-prioritized goal of modern Astrophysics, in part because star formation is linked to both galactic dynamics on large scales and to the formation of planets on small scales. It is…
Understanding the formation of the first stars is one of the frontier topics in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Their emergence signaled the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, leading to a…
Observations of the dust and gas around embedded stellar clusters reveal some of the processes involved in their formation and evolution. Large scale mass infall with rates dM/dt=4e-4 solar masses/year is found to be disrupted on small…
Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ~100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local…
This contribution summarizes briefly the main topics covered at this wide-ranging conference. Much of the evidence presented indicates that star formation occurs in discrete episodes or bursts that produce stellar groupings of all sizes,…
In the first part of this article, we review observations of the mass and luminosity functions of young and old star cluster systems. We also review some of the physical processes that may determine the characteristic mass of globular…
Recent spacecraft observations exploring solar system properties impact standard paradigms of the formation of stars, planets and comets. We stress the unexpected cloud of microscopic dust resulting from the DEEP IMPACT mission, and the…