Related papers: Weighing the young stellar discs around Sgr A*
The origin of the population of very massive stars observed within $\sim 0.4$ pc of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre is a mystery. Tidal forces from the black hole would likely inhibit {\it in situ} star formation whilst…
We investigate the properties of stars born via gravitational instability in accretion discs around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN), and how this varies with the SMBH mass, accretion rate, or viscosity. We…
The canonical theory for planet formation in circumstellar disks proposes that planets are grown from initially much smaller seeds. The long-considered alternative theory proposes that giant protoplanets can be formed directly from…
We present radio and infrared observations indicating on-going star formation activity inside the $\sim2-5$ pc circumnuclear ring at the Galactic center. Collectively these measurements suggest a continued disk-based mode of on-going star…
There have been several recent detections of candidate Keplerian discs around massive young protostars. Given the relatively large disc-to-star mass ratios in these systems, and their young ages, it is worth investigating their propensity…
The observed discrete multiple stellar populations and internal abundance spreads in r- and s-process elements within globular clusters (GCs) have been suggested to be explained self-consistently by discrete star formation events over a…
Spectro-seismic measurements of red giants enabled the recent discovery of stars in the thick disk that are more massive than 1.4 M_sun. While it has been claimed that most of these stars are younger than the rest of the typical thick disk…
The presence of young massive stars orbiting on eccentric rings within a few tenths of a parsec of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic centre is challenging for theories of star formation. The high tidal shear from the black hole…
It appears that most stars are born in clusters, and that at birth most stars have circumstellar discs which are comparable in size to the separations between the stars. Interactions between neighbouring stars and discs are therefore likely…
Using the VLA, we recently detected a large number of protoplanetary disk (proplyd) candidates lying within a couple of light years of the massive black hole Sgr A*. The bow-shock appearance of proplyd candidates point toward the young…
Early-type galaxies (ETGs) host a hot ISM produced mainly by stellar winds, and heated by Type Ia supernovae and the thermalization of stellar motions. High resolution 2D hydrodynamical simulations showed that ordered rotation in the…
The rate at which interstellar gas is converted into stars, and its dependence on environment, is one of the pillars on which our understanding of the visible Universe is build. We present a comparison of the surface density of young stars…
A large fraction of brown dwarfs and low-mass H-burning stars may form by gravitational fragmentation of protostellar discs. We explore the conditions for disc fragmentation and we find that they are satisfied when a disc is large enough…
Recent analysis of the decay products of short-lived radiounclides (SLRs) in meteorites, in particular the confirmation of the presence of live 60Fe in the early Solar System, provides unambiguous evidence that the Sun and Solar System…
Stars do not form continuously distributed over star forming galaxies. They form in star clusters of different masses. This nature of clustered star formation is taken into account in the theory of the integrated galactic stellar initial…
Accretion disks are an essential component in the paradigm of the formation of low-mass stars. Recent observations further identify disks surrounding low-mass pre-main-sequence stars perturbed by flybys. Whether disks around more massive…
A large fraction of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars may form by gravitational fragmentation of relatively massive (a few 0.1 Msun), extended (a few hundred AU) discs around Sun-like stars. We present an ensemble of radiative hydrodynamic…
Context: Around 30 per cent of the observed exoplanets that orbit M dwarf stars are gas giants that are more massive than Jupiter. These planets are prime candidates for formation by disc instability. Aims: We want to determine the…
Davies and King have suggested that the bright stars observed on short-period orbits about Sgr A* (``S stars'') are old, low-mass stripped AGB stars rather than young, high-mass main-sequence stars. If the observationally inferred effective…
We use a series of N-body/smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations and analytic arguments to show that the presence of an effective temperature floor in the interstellar medium at T_F ~ 10^4 K naturally explains the tendency for low-mass…