Related papers: Star Formation Studies at the VLT
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
I describe some of the current challenges in galaxy formation theory with applications to formation of disks and of spheroids. Forthcoming deep surveys of galaxies with Keck and VLT will provide high quality spectra of $\sim 10^5$ galaxies…
The late evolutionary stages of stellar evolution are a key ingredient for our understanding in many fields of astrophysics, including stellar evolution and the enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM) via stellar yields. Already the…
New facilities and technologies have advanced our understanding of massive stars significantly over the past 30 years. Here I introduce a new large survey of massive stars using VLT-FLAMES, noting the target fields and observed binary…
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets has shown that the birth of planets is a very efficient process in nature. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to describe the assembly of planets in disks surrounding young stars.…
In recent years, HST revolutionized the field of star formation in nearby galaxies. Due to its high angular resolution it has now become possible to construct star formation histories of individual stellar populations on scales of a few…
In these lectures I review observations of star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy and nearby galaxies to develop a physical intuition for understanding star formation in the local and high-redshift Universe. A lot of this material is…
This presentation summarizes how some of the most pressing questions in the field of star and planet formation can be addressed by high angular resolution optical/infrared capabilities, and how many of these capabilities will in fact be…
Stellar halos around galaxies retain fundamental evidence of the processes which lead to their build up. Sophisticated models of galaxy formation in a cosmological context yield quantitative predictions about various observable…
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) at radio wavelengths can provide astrometry accurate to 10 micro-arcseconds or better (i.e. better than the target GAIA accuracy) without being limited by dust obscuration. This means that unlike…
Motivated by recent progress in the study of early-type galaxies owing to technological advances, the launch of new space telescopes and large ground-based surveys, we attempt a short review of our current understanding of the recent…
The VLTI Spectro Imager (VSI) was proposed as a second-generation instrument of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer providing the ESO community with spectrally-resolved, near-infrared images at angular resolutions down to 1.1…
We present near ultraviolet imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys, targeting young radio galaxies (Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum and Compact Steep Spectrum sources), in search of star formation regions in their…
Context. A characteristic feature of young stellar objects is their variability, which is caused by a variety of different physical processes. High-resolution interferometric observations in the near- and mid-infrared wavelength ranges…
The role of the SKA in high resolution observations of the formation of low and high mass stars in the Galaxy is examined. The large collecting area will have a large impact on dynamical studies at high resolution using spectral lines. The…
The direct images of giant extrasolar planets recently obtained around several main sequence stars represent a major step in the study of planetary systems. These high-dynamic range images are among the most striking results obtained by the…
Recent results on the evolution of Local Group dwarf galaxies obtained from VLT imaging and spectroscopy are briefly reviewed, and prospects for dwarf galaxy research at the VLT are discussed in the light of the current and forthcoming…
We qualitatively study the effects of gravitational microlensing on our view of unresolved extragalactic star formation regions. Using a general gravitational microlensing configuration, we perform a number of simulations that reveal that…
We present feasibility studies to directly image stellar surface features, which are caused by magnetic activity, with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). We concentrate on late type magnetically active stars, for which the…
Star formation is a multi-scale, multi-physics problem ranging from the size scale of molecular clouds ($\sim$10s pc) down to the size scales of dense prestellar cores ($\sim$0.1 pc) that are the birth sites of stars. Several physical…