Related papers: Massive star formation: Nurture, not nature
We present a model for the formation of high-mass close binary systems in the context of forming massive stars through gas accretion in the centres of stellar clusters. A low-mass wide binary evolves under mass accretion towards a high-mass…
The conditions that lead to self-regulated star formation, star bursts and the formation of massive stellar clusters are discussed. Massive stars have a strong impact on their environment, especially on the evolution of dwarf galaxies which…
Mergers of massive gas-rich galaxies trigger violent starbursts that - over timescales of $> 100$ Myr and regions $> 10$ kpc - form massive and compact star clusters comparable in mass and radii to Galactic globular clusters. The star…
Star formation is triggered in essentially three ways: (1) the pressures from existing stars collect and squeeze nearby dense gas into gravitationally unstable configurations, (2) random compression from supersonic turbulence makes new…
The process of star formation from metal-free gas is investigated by following the evolution of accreting protostars with emphasis on the properties of massive objects. The main aim is to establish the physical processes that determine the…
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…
The mass assembly in star forming regions arises from the hierarchical structure in molecular clouds in tandem with fragmentation at different scales. In this paper, we present a study of the fragmentation of massive clumps covering a range…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
This chapter reviews the dynamical processes in young stellar clusters. The accretion of gas by individual stars affects the dynamics of the cluster, and the masses of the stars. Dynamical mass segregation cannot explain the degree of mass…
The evolution of star clusters is determined by several internal and external processes. Here we focus on two dominant internal effects, namely energy exchange between stars through close encounters (two-body relaxation) and mass-loss of…
The young star clusters we observe today are the building blocks of a new generation of stars and planets in our Galaxy and beyond. Despite their fundamental role we still lack knowledge about the conditions under which star clusters form…
I review the arguments motivating models for massive star formation via stellar collisions. I then describe how the standard accretion scenario, involving the collapse of a quasi-hydrostatic gas core, can produce high-mass stars in the…
High-mass stars are commonly found in stellar clusters promoting the idea that their formation occurs due to the physical processes linked with a young stellar cluster. It has recently been reported that isolated high-mass stars are present…
The formation of massive stellar clusters in turbulent molecular clouds is investigated. We include artificial star formation and energy feedback of newly born stars. The obtained systems are not likely to survive. Case studies to determine…
How starburst clusters form out of molecular clouds is still an open question. In this article, I highlight some of the key constraints in this regard, that one can get from the dynamical evolutionary properties of dense stellar systems. I…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
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…
The current generation of millimeter interferometers have revealed a population of compact (r <~ 0.1 pc), massive (M ~ 100 Msun) gas cores that are the likely progenitors of massive stars. I review models for the evolution of these objects…
What is the nature of a star forming clump? Observations reveal these to be chaotic environments being modified and influenced by many physical processes. However, numerical simulations often define these initial star forming clumps to be…
We present a simple physical mechanism that can account for the observed stellar mass spectrum for masses $\ms \simgreat 0.5 \solm$. The model depends solely on the competitive accretion that occurs in stellar clusters where each star's…