Related papers: Formation of Young Star Clusters
The Taurus molecular cloud complex is the paradigm for quiescent, low-density, isolated star formation. Yet the age distribution of its stellar population indicates that star formation is a rapid and dynamic process, inconsistent with the…
Recent high-resolution observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) reveal that young star clusters of extraordinary luminosity and compactness ("super star clusters") are commonly found in starburst systems. Cluster formation appears…
Galaxy interactions and mergers play a significant, but still debated and poorly understood role in the star formation history of galaxies. Numerical and theoretical models cannot yet explain the main properties of merger-induced…
The isothermal dynamical evolution of a clumpy and turbulent molecular cloud region and its fragmentation into a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The effect of different initial density and velocity distributions, generated…
The origin and types of spiral arms are reviewed with an emphasis on the connections between these arms and star formation. Flocculent spiral arms are most likely the result of transient instabilities in the gas that promote dense cloud…
The study of the internal structure of star clusters provides important clues concerning their formation mechanism and dynamical evolution. There are both observational and numerical evidences indicating that open clusters evolve from an…
Most star complexes are in fact complexes of stars, clusters and gas clouds; term "star complexes" was introduced as general one disregarding the preferential content of a complex. Generally the high rate of star formation in a complex is…
Massive stars in young massive clusters insert tremendous amounts of mass and energy into their surroundings in the form of stellar winds and supernova ejecta. Mutual shock-shock collisions lead to formation of hot gas, filling the volume…
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…
Massive stars blow powerful winds and eventually explode as supernovae. By doing so, they inject energy and momentum in the circumstellar medium, which is pushed away from the star and piles up to form a dense and expanding shell of gas.…
Observations have revealed that most stars are born in clusters. These systems, containing from tens to thousands of stars and typically significant mass in gas in the youngest systems, evolve due to a combination of stellar and star-gas…
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…
We study the formation and early evolution of star clusters that have a wide range of masses and background cloud mass surface densities, $\Sigma_{\rm cloud}$, which help set the initial sizes, densities, and velocity dispersions of the…
Star formation involves the flow of gas and dust within molecular clouds into protostars and young stellar objects (YSOs) due to gravity. Along the way, these flows are shaped significantly by many other mechanisms, including pressure,…
The formation of a star is a dynamic process fed by the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud core. Theoretical models and observations suggest that the majority of this infalling material settles into a protoplanetary disk before…
We examine the idea that diffuse and giant molecular clouds and their substructure form as density fluctuations induced by large scale interstellar turbulence. We do this by investigating the topology of various fields in realistic…
Stellar clusters are born in cold and dusty molecular clouds and the youngest clusters are embedded to various degrees in dusty dark molecular material. Such embedded clusters can be considered protocluster systems. The most deeply buried…
Intermediate and massive stars drive fast and powerful isotropic winds that interact with the winds of nearby stars in star clusters and the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). Wind-ISM collisions generate astrospheres around these stars…
Young and massive star clusters above a critical mass form thermally unstable clumps reducing locally the temperature and pressure of the hot 10$^{7}$~K cluster wind. The matter reinserted by stars, and mass loaded in interactions with…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…