The simultaneous formation of massive stars and stellar clusters

By Rowan J. Smith, S. Longmore, Ian A. Bonnell. 2009

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star-forming clumps, such as those observed in Motte et al., contract and grow in mass leading to the formation of massive stars. This occurs as mass is continually channelled from large radii on to the central protostars, which can become massive through accretion. Using smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations of massive star-forming clumps in a giant molecular cloud, we show that clumps are initially diffuse and filamentary, and become more concentrated as they collapse. Simulated interferometry observations of our data provide an explanation as to why young massive star-forming regions show more substructure than older ones. The most massive stars in our model are found within the most bound cluster. Most of the mass accreted by the massive stars was originally distributed throughout the clump at low densities and was later funnelled to the star due to global infall. Even with radiative feedback no massive pre-stellar cores are formed. The original cores are of intermediate mass and gain their additional mass in the protostellar stage. We also find that cores which form low-mass stars exist within the volume from which the high-mass stars accrete, but are largely unaffected by this process.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spectroscopy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/90dcba136246ee5efd3e9be843c1d67ebb614a42

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Citations in the corpus

RADIATION-HYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF THE FORMATION OF ORION-LIKE STAR CLUSTERS. II. THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION FROM WINDS, TURBULENCE, AND RADIATION (2012, background): “1 M , and massive stars subsequently grow from these small seeds by Bondi-Hoyle accretion (Bonnell et al. 1997, 2001a,b, 2004, 2006; Bonnell & Bate 2002, 2006; Bate & Bonnell 2005; Smith et al. 2009a,b).”
Variations in the Galactic star formation rate and density thresholds for star formation (2012, background): “This is parametrised through,SFR = 4.6 × 3 Assuming high mass stars are well selected from the IMF as expected if their formation is intrinsically linked with the formationof massive stellar clusters (e.g. Smith et al. 2009).”
Global collapse of molecular clouds as a formation mechanism for the most massive stars (2013, background): “This is few free-fall times longer than the typical timescale over which simulations modelling the evolution of massive star-forming clouds evolve (e.g. Smith et al. 2009; Krumholz et al. 2012).”
FILAMENTARY ACCRETION FLOWS IN THE EMBEDDED SERPENS SOUTH PROTOCLUSTER (2013, background): “Analysis of competitive accretion simulations indeed show that this can occur (Smith et al 2009).”
Global hierarchical collapse in molecular clouds. Towards a comprehensive scenario (2019, background): “An exception is the study by Smith et al. (2009), which did consider the accretion onto the star-forming clumps and their mass evolution, concluding that the massive stars form when the clumps have become massive enough themselves, similarly to Vázquez-Semadeni et al. (2017).”
The stellar and sub-stellar IMF of simple and composite populations (2011, methodology): “Perhaps radiative feedback can limit the fragmentation, but Smith et al. (2009) demonstrate that radiative feedback does not lead to the formation of massive pre-stellar cores in isolation.”