Related papers: Initial Conditions for Massive Star Birth -- Infra…
Infrared Dark Clouds appear to be the long sought population of cold and dense aggregations with the potential of harbouring the earliest stages of massive star formation. Up to now there has been no systematic study on the temperature…
This article presents high-resolution interferometric mosaics in the 850 micron waveband of two massive, quiescent infrared dark clouds. The two clouds were chosen based on their likelihood to represent environments preceding the formation…
The early stages of star formation are closely related to the ambient conditions in the interstellar medium. Important questions such as dust abundance, size distribution, temperature distribution, fraction of molecular gas, fraction of…
Recent optical observations have led to a significant progress in our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. However, our view on the deep universe is currently limited to the starlight which directly escapes from high-redshift…
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
This article presents recent work to constrain the physical and chemical properties in high-mass star formation based largely on interferometric high-spatial-resolution continuum and spectral line studies at (sub)mm wavelengths. After…
Super Star Clusters are one of the most extreme star forming environments in the universe, and the most massive and dense of these may be proto globular clusters. Like individual massive stars, the earliest stages of super star cluster…
The initial conditions of massive star and star cluster formation are expected to be cold, dense and high column density regions of the interstellar medium, which can reveal themselves via near, mid and even far-infrared absorption as…
We present new NH3 (1,1), (2,2), and (4,4) observations from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) compiled with work in the literature to explore the range of conditions observed in young, massive star-forming regions. To sample the…
Processes that promote the formation of dense cold clouds in the interstellar media of galaxies are reviewed. Those that involve background stellar mass include two-fluid instabilities, spiral density wave shocking, and bar accretion. Young…
To study large-scale structure in the Universe a full census of the contents are required. This is even more important when the processes of galaxy formation are being investigated. In the last year the population of distant galaxies that…
The formation of stellar clusters dictates the pace at which galaxies evolve, and solving the question of their formation will undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of the Universe as a whole. While it is well known that star clusters…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the primary reservoirs of cold, star-forming molecular gas in the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and thus any understanding of star formation must encompass a model for GMC formation, evolution, and…
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…
Identified as extinction features against the bright Galactic mid-infrared background, infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) are thought to harbor the very earliest stages of star and cluster formation. In order to better characterize the properties…
We investigate the sources and amount of dust in early galaxies. We discuss dust nucleation in stellar atmospheres using published extended atmosphere models, stellar evolution tracks and nucleation conditions and conclude that the (TPAGB)…
Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) represent the earliest observed stages of clustered star formation, characterized by large column densities of cold and dense molecular material observed in silhouette against a bright background of mid-IR…
Among the remarkable strides made by JWST is the discovery of the earliest star clusters found to date. These have been proposed as early progenitors of globular clusters, which are known to come from the early stages of star formation in…
We present a review of observational studies of high-mass star formation, based mainly on our own research. It includes surveys of high-mass star-forming regions in various molecular lines and in continuum, investigations of filamentary…
We present a new assessment of the ability of Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) to form massive stars and clusters. This is done by comparison with an empirical mass-size threshold for massive star formation (MSF). We establish…