Massive star formation in 100,000 years from turbulent and pressurized molecular clouds

@article{McKee2002MassiveSF,
  title={Massive star formation in 100,000 years from turbulent and pressurized molecular clouds},
  author={Christopher F. McKee and Jonathan C. Tan},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2002},
  volume={416},
  pages={59-61},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4330710}
}
It is shown that t*f is determined by the conditions in the star's natal cloud, and is typically ∼105 yr, which is sufficient to overcome radiation pressure from ∼100M[circdot] protostars, while simultaneously driving intense bipolar gas outflows.
View on Nature
[PDF] Semantic Reader
295 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
29
Background Citations
187
Methods Citations
31
Results Citations
14

295 Citations

The Formation of Massive Stars from Turbulent Cores

Observations indicate that massive stars in the Galaxy form in regions of very high surface density, Σ ~ 1 g cm-2. Clusters containing massive stars and globular clusters have a column density…

Infall of gas as the formation mechanism of stars up to 20 times more massive than the Sun

Observations of an ammonia line towards a high-mass star forming region conclude that the gas is falling inwards towards a very young star of ∼20M[circdot], in line with theoretical predictions of non-spherical accretion.

A minimum column density of 1 g cm-2 for massive star formation

It is shown that only clouds with column densities of at least 1 g cm-2 can avoid fragmentation and form massive stars, and the existence of a threshold implies that the initial mass function should show detectable variation with environment within the Galaxy.

Formation of the First Star Clusters and Massive Star Binaries by Fragmentation of Filamentary Primordial Gas Clouds

We perform a set of cosmological simulations of early structure formation incorporating baryonic streaming motions. We present a case where a significantly elongated gas cloud with ∼104 solar mass…

Models for the Formation of Massive Stars

The formation of massive stars is currently an unsolved problems in astrophysics. Understanding the formation of massive stars is essential because they dominate the luminous, kinematic, and chemical…

The formation of the first low-mass stars from gas with low carbon and oxygen abundances

It is shown that as soon as the primordial gas—left over from the Big Bang—is enriched by elements ejected from supernovae to a carbon or oxygen abundance as small as ∼0.01–0.1 per cent of that found in the Sun, cooling by singly ionized carbon or neutral oxygen can lead to the formation of low-mass stars by allowing cloud fragmentation to smaller clumps.

EVOLUTION OF MASSIVE PROTOSTARS WITH HIGH ACCRETION RATES

Formation of massive stars by accretion requires a high accretion rate of 10^{-4} M_{\odot }\, {\rm yr^{-1}}$?> to overcome the radiation pressure barrier of the forming stars. Here, we study…

Slow Star Formation in Dense Gas: Evidence and Implications

It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely…

The Origin of Massive Stars: The Inertial-inflow Model

We address the problem of the origin of massive stars, namely the origin, path, and timescale of the mass flows that create them. Based on extensive numerical simulations, we propose a scenario where…

Massive Star Formation via High Accretion Rates and Early Disk-driven Outflows

We present an investigation of the massive star formation that results from the gravitational collapse of massive, magnetized molecular cloud cores. We investigate this by means of highly resolved,…
...

33 References

Formation of Massive Stars by Growing Accretion

. We calculate pre-Main Sequence evolutionary tracks with accretion rates growing with the actual stellar masses. We show that ac cretion rates growing at least as M 1,5 are necessary to fit the…

Efficiencies of Low-Mass Star and Star Cluster Formation

Using a quantitative model for bipolar outflows driven by hydromagnetic protostellar winds, we calculate the efficiency of star formation assuming that available gas is either converted into stars or…

ABOUT THE ABSENCE OF A PROPER ZERO AGE MAIN SEQUENCE FOR MASSIVE STARS

The formation of stars up to 120 M is computed in the framework of the accretion scenario. For realistic accretion rates derived from the observed line width in various molecular dark clouds, the…

Hot Molecular Cores and the Formation of Massive Stars

It has been proposed that some hot molecular cores (HMCs) harbor a young embedded massive star, which heats an infalling envelope and accretes mass at a rate high enough to ``choke off'' an incipient…

The evolution of intermediate-mass protostars. I, Basic results

A numerical calculation of the structure and evolution of Population I protostars in the range from 1 to 8 solar masses is presented. The protostar is modeled as being built up from a spherically…

Conditions for the formation of massive stars

Upper limits on the masses of stars that can form are reexamined and models for the inflow of matter through cocoons around stars of 60, 100, and 200 solar masses are calculated. Consideration is…

Structure and Evolution of the Envelopes of Deeply Embedded Massive Young Stars

The physical structure of the envelopes around a sample of 14 massive young stars is investigated using maps and spectra in submillimeter continuum and lines of C17O, CS, C34S, and H2CO. Nine of the…

Prediction of stellar mass in star formation: Theory and its application to the orion a cloud

We have developed a way to estimate the mass of a star from the physical quantities of the cloud core in which it forms. Because matter falls onto a stellar core mainly through an accretion disk, a…

Evolution of Protostars Accreting Mass at Very High Rates: Is Orion IRc2 a Huge Protostar?

The recent near-infrared spectroscopy of scattered light from Orion IRc2 suggests that the illuminating source at the K′ band is either a protostar with a radius ≳300 R☉ or a disk with an accretion…

Competitive accretion in embedded stellar clusters

We investigate the physics of gas accretion in young stellar clusters. Accretion in clusters is a dynamic phenomenon as both the stars and the gas respond to the same gravitational potential.…