The physics of star formation

By R. Larson. 2003

328 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational collapse characterized by the runaway growth of a central density peak that evolves towards a singularity. As long as collapse can occur, rotation and magnetic fields do not change this qualitative behaviour. The result is that a very small embryonic star or protostar forms and grows by accretion at a rate that is initially high but declines with time as the surrounding envelope is depleted. Rotation causes some of the remaining matter to form a disk around the protostar, but accretion from protostellar disks is not well understood and may be variable. Most, and possibly all, stars form in binary or multiple systems in which gravitational interactions can play a role in redistributing angular momentum and driving episodes of disk accretion. Variable accretion may account for some peculiarities of young stars such as flareups and jet production, and protostellar interactions in forming systems of stars will also have important implications for planet formation. The most massive stars form in the densest environments by processes that are not yet well understood but may include violent interactions and mergers. The formation of the most massive stars may have similarities to the formation and growth of massive black holes in very dense environments.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4b4ec195122b4182153c459748cdf1ceebbaaaf8

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Citations in the corpus

Outflows and Jets from Collapsing Magnetized Cloud Cores (2005, background): “The critical density set by dust cooling is of the order of 1010 cm−3 after which the core becomes essentially adiabatic (see e.g. Larson 2003) rather than the value of 107.5 cm−3 which is set by the molecular cooling scale.”
Gas- and dust evolution in protoplanetary disks (2010, background): “The maximum accretion rate is about 13c3s/G if opacity effects are included (see Larson 2003).”
The Birth of High-Mass Stars: Accretion and/or Mergers? (2005, background): “The birth of massive stars remains one of the outstanding problems in star formation (Stahler, Palla, & Ho, 2000; Larson 2003).”
Formation of Giant Planets (2004, background): “Although many details are poorly understood, a standard picture has emerged for the star and planet formation process, supported by observation and by theory [4,5,6].”
VLA H I Observations of Gas Stripping in the Virgo Cluster Spiral NGC 4522 (2004, background): “The lifetimes of molecular clouds are estimated to be ≤107 yrs (Larson 2003; Hartmann 2003), significantly shorter than the orbital and stripping timescales.”
Thermal physics, cloud geometry and the stellar initial mass function (2005, methodology): “…has been such a challenging problem numerically, with some calculations yielding rings and others not, depending on the numerical resolution used C© 2005 RAS, MNRAS 359, 211–222 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/359/1/211/983445 by guest on 30 July 2018 (Larson 2003).”
Stellar Chemical Signatures and Hierarchical Galaxy Formation (2004, background): “Detailed studies of star formation in galaxies show that the concentrations of molecular gas where star formation occurs are highly fractal, with structures from a few thousand to 1 M (see review in Larson 2003).”
Resolving the Formation of Protogalaxies. I. Virialization (2007, background): “…Kitayama et al. 2004; Alvarez et al. 2006; Yoshida et al. 2006a; Abel et al. 2007), metal enrichment from primordial stars (Heger & Woosley 2002; Tumlinson 2006), AGN feedback (Springel et al. 2005; Kuhlen & Madau 2005), and “normal” metal-enriched star formation (see Larson 2003, for a review).”
SPITZER SAGE INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF MASSIVE STARS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD (2009, neutral): “…2009; (Me05) Meynadier et al. 2005; (N94) Niemela & Bassino 1994; (N01) Niemela et al. 2001; (O95) Oey & Massey 1995; (O01) Olsen et al. 2001; (O01b) Ostrov et al. 2001; (O01c) Ostrov 2001; (O03) Ostrov & Lapasset 2003; (P01) Parker et al. 2001; (P92) Parker et al. 1992; (P93) Parker 1993; (R02)…”
GAS STRIPPING IN SIMULATED GALAXIES WITH A MULTIPHASE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM (2009, background): “The Evolving ISM A molecular cloud may survive between a few and a few tens of Myr (Blitz & Shu 1980; Larson 2003; Hartmann 2003).”