Related papers: The Physics of Star Formation
Massive stars influence their surroundings through radiation, winds, and supernova explosions far out of proportion to their small numbers. However, the physical processes that initiate and govern the birth of massive stars remain poorly…
[Abridged] Star and planet formation are the complex outcomes of gravitational collapse and angular momentum transport mediated by protostellar and protoplanetary disks. In this review we focus on the role of gravitational instability in…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we discuss the initial conditions for Population III star formation, as given by variants of the…
Recent observations of young stellar systems with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) are helping to cement the idea that close companion stars form via fragmentation of a…
Recent observations have suggested that circumstellar disks may commonly form around young stellar objects. Although the formation of circumstellar disks can be a natural result of the conservation of angular momentum in the parent cloud,…
Identifying the processes that determine strength, duration and variability of protostellar mass growth is a fundamental ingredient of any theory of star formation. I discuss protostellar mass accretion rates dM/dt from numerical models…
Cloud environment is thought to play a critical role in determining the mechanism of formation of massive stars. In this contribution we review the physical characteristics of the environment around recently formed massive stars. Particular…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
These lectures attempt to expose the most important ideas, which have been proposed to explain the formation of stars with particular emphasis on the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars. We first describe the important physical…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
In star formation, magnetic fields act as a cosmic angular momentum extractor that increases mass accretion rates onto protostars and in the process, creates spectacular outflows. However, recently it has been argued that this magnetic…
The star formation process in molecular clouds usually leads to the formation of multiple stellar systems, mostly binaries. Remaining disks around those stars may be located around individual stars (circumstellar disks) or around the entire…
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
The collapse of massive molecular clumps can produce high mass stars, but the evolution is not simply a scaled-up version of low mass star formation. Outflows and radiative effects strongly hinder the formation of massive stars via…
It is now a widely held view that, in their formation and early evolution, stars build up mass in bursts. The burst mode of star formation scenario proposes that the stars grow in mass via episodic accretion of fragments migrating from…
We discuss the effects of the magnetic field observed in molecular clouds on the process of star formation, concentrating on the phase of gravitational collapse of low-mass dense cores, cradles of sunlike stars. We summarize recent analytic…
Rotation plays a key role in the star-formation process, from pre-stellar cores to pre-main-sequence (PMS) objects. Understanding the formation of massive stars requires taking into account the accretion of angular momentum during their PMS…
How stars are born from clouds of gas is a rich physics problem whose solution will inform our understanding of not just stars but also planets, galaxies, and the universe itself. Star formation is stupendously inefficient. Take the Milky…
The last decade has witnessed significant advances in our observational understanding of the earliest stages of low-mass star formation. The advent of sensitive receivers on large radio telescopes such as the JCMT and IRAM 30m MRT has led…
The formation of planets is one of the major unsolved problems in modern astrophysics. Planets are believed to form out of the material in circumstellar disks known to exist around young stars, and which are a by-product of the star…