Massive star formation: nurture, not nature

By Ian A. Bonnell, S. Vine, Matthew R. Bate. 2004

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We investigate the physical processes that lead to the formation of massive stars. Using a numerical simulation of the formation of a stellar cluster from a turbulent molecular cloud, we evaluate the relevant contributions of fragmentation and competitive accretion in determining the masses of the more massive stars. We find no correlation between the final mass of a massive star, and the mass of the clump from which it forms. Instead, we find that the bulk of the mass of massive stars comes from subsequent competitive accretion in a clustered environment. In fact, the majority of this mass infalls on to a pre-existing stellar cluster. Furthermore, the mass of the most massive star in a system increases as the system grows in numbers of stars and in total mass. This arises as the infalling gas is accompanied by newly formed stars, resulting in a larger cluster around a more massive star. High-mass stars gain mass as they gain companions, implying a direct causal relationship between the cluster formation process and the formation of higher-mass stars therein.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e4418de4d58e6ded86f366a842e74ec94f5d21d

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Citations in the corpus

FORMATION OF MASSIVE MOLECULAR CLOUD CORES BY CLOUD–CLOUD COLLISION (2013, background): “…theoretical point of view that massive stars can be formed by gravitational collapse of massive molecular cloud cores (Nakano et al. 2000; McKee & Tan 2002; Yorke & Sonnhalter 2002; Krumholz et al. 2009) and/or by competitive gas accretion in stellar cluster forming region (Bonnell et al. 2004).”
STELLAR POPULATIONS IN THE CENTRAL 0.5 pc OF THE GALAXY. II. THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION (2013, background): “Some theories of star formation suggest that in extreme conditions, such as those found at the Galactic center, the characteristic mass may be significantly higher than in local star-forming regions (Morris 1993; Bonnell et al. 2004; Krumholz & McKee 2008).”
Importance of the Initial Conditions for Star Formation - I. Cloud Evolution and Morphology (2010, background): “Bate et al. (2003), Bate & Bonnell (2005), Bate (2009a,b, c), Bonnell et al. (2003, 2004) and Bonnell & Bate (2005), for example, always used divergence-free, decaying turbulent fields.”
The relation between the most-massive star and its parental star cluster mass (2009, methodology): “In their numerical calculations of star-forming molecular clouds using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics code Bonnell et al. (2003, 2004) found a relation, m Bonnell max = 0.39 × M 2/3 ecl , (5) which is shown as a dotted line in Fig.”
H II REGIONS: WITNESSES TO MASSIVE STAR FORMATION (2010, methodology): “The accretion behavior in Run B contrasts sharply with competitive accretion models (Bonnell et al. 2001, 2004), which have no mechanism to turn off accretion onto the most massive stars.”
Collapse, outflows and fragmentation of massive, turbulent and magnetized prestellar barotropic cores (2011, methodology): “Simulations like the ones performed by Bonnell et al. (2004), Klessen & Burkert (2000, 2001) and Dobbs et al. (2005) generally find that the number of fragments is comparable with or even exceeds the number of initial Jeans masses within the clouds, which implies that a massive core may result in a…”
SOUTHERN MASSIVE STARS AT HIGH ANGULAR RESOLUTION: OBSERVATIONAL CAMPAIGN AND COMPANION DETECTION (2014, background): “Multiplicity is a natural consequence of the high infall rates that are predicted by the theories of massive star formation (McKee & Tan 2003; Bonnell et al. 2004).”
RADIATION-HYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF THE FORMATION OF ORION-LIKE STAR CLUSTERS. II. THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION FROM WINDS, TURBULENCE, AND RADIATION (2012, background): “In the competitive accretion model such structures should be absent, because everything fragments down to the thermal Jeans mass (Bonnell et al. 2004; Bate & Bonnell 2005) and some objects subsequently grow to larger masses by Bondi-Hoyle accretion.”
Interpreting Spectral Energy Distributions from Young Stellar Objects. I. A Grid of 200,000 YSO Model SEDs (2006, methodology): “The average values were chosen to match estimates of low-mass (Adams et al. 1987; Kenyon et al. 1993a,b; Whitney et al. 1997) and high-mass YSOs (Wolfire & Cassinelli 1987; Osorio et al. 1999; Omukai & Palla 2001; Churchwell 2002; Yorke & Sonnhalter 2002; McKee & Tan 2003; Bonnell et al. 2004).”
Global Models for the Evolution of Embedded, Accreting Protostellar Disks (2007, methodology): “(As we discussed in § 3.4, this may well be conservative – in the sense that secondaries may form at even lower values of µ, or at earlier times through core fragmentation as described in Bonnell et al. 2004.)”
The simultaneous formation of massive stars and stellar clusters (2009, background): “This provides a natural explanation for the link between total stellar mass and the most massive star outlined in Bonnell et al. (2004).”
LIMITING ACCRETION ONTO MASSIVE STARS BY FRAGMENTATION-INDUCED STARVATION (2010, background): “However, unlike in the classical competitive accretion picture (Bonnell et al. 2001a, 2004), it is not 5 We will hereafter refer to the flattened, dense, accretion flow that forms in the midplane of our rotating core as a disk.”
Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium (2014, background): “The cluster potential channels mass toward the center, so stars that remain in the center grow to large masses, while those that are ejected from the cluster center by N -body interactions remain low mass (Bonnell et al., 2004).”
Star formation through gravitational collapse and competitive accretion (2006, methodology): “Unfortunately, Krumholz et al.̃(2005a) use globally averaged estimates for the gas density and the velocity instead of the local variables as used in the Bonnell et al.(2001a, 2004) numerical simulations.”
CIRCUMVENTING THE RADIATION PRESSURE BARRIER IN THE FORMATION OF MASSIVE STARS VIA DISK ACCRETION (2010, background): “Previous theoretical models focused on different points of view, namely, the competitive accretion (Bonnell et al. 1998; Bonnell & Bate 2002; Bonnell et al. 2004; Bate 2009a, 2009b) and the turbulent core model (McKee & Tan 2003), but they agree on the formation of accretion disks.”
The maximum stellar mass, star-cluster formation and composite stellar populations (2005, background): “We note here that Bonnell et al. (2004) found their theoretical clusters to form hierarchically from smaller subclusters, and together with continued competitive accretion this leads to the relation mmax ∝ M2/3ecl (equation 13) in excellent agreement with our compilation of observational data for…”
Massive stars in massive clusters II: Disruption of bound clusters by photoionization (2012, background): “The massive stars in turn are usually to be found near cluster centres, either because they formed there through competitive accretion (e.g Bonnell et al. 2004) or migrated there through rapid mass segregation (e.g McMillan et al. 2007; Allison et al. 2009; Moeckel & Bonnell 2009).”