Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T15:54:31.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Environs and Formation of Massive Stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

Susana Lizano  and
Guido Garay
Susana Lizano
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM, Apdo. Postal 72-3 (Xangari), 58089 Morelia, Michoacán, México
Guido Garay
Affiliation:
Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Massive stars in our Galaxy are born predominantly within the dense cores of giant molecular clouds. They affect their environment very soon after a stellar core has formed through their large rate of ionizing photons and their strong stellar winds. Massive stars are formed in clusters with stellar densities n* ~ 104 stars/pc3 and sizes 0.2 — 0.4 pc, and seem to preferentially form near the central region of the cores. Disks have been found in several sources (see Cesaroni, this volume). Associated with massive stars also are bipolar molecular outflows, which have masses, mass loss rates, and energies that are factors of ~ 100 larger than those of low mass stars (see review of Churchwell 1999).

An understanding of the physical processes that dominate during the early stages of formation of massive stars and their influence back on the molecular gas from which they formed requires a detailed knowledge of the physical conditions of the environment prior to and after the formation of the star. Here we present an abstract of an extensive review on this subject by Garay & Lizano (1999). For compactness, most of the references have been omitted.

Type
II. Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 12: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XXIVth General Assembly of the IAU, 2000 , 2002 , pp. 161 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Pacific 2002

References

Churchwell, E. 1999, The Origin of Stars and Planetary Systems, eds. Charles J., Lada & Nikolaos D., Kylafis, Kluwer Academie Publishers, 515 Google Scholar
Garay, G. & Lizano, S. 1999, PASP, 111, 1049 Google Scholar
Kaufman, M.J., Hollenbach, D.J., & Tielens, A.G.G. 1998, ApJ, 497, 276 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurtz, S., Cesaroni, R., Churchwell, E., Hofner, P., & Walmsley, M. 2000, Protostars &; Planets IV, ed. V.Mannings, , Boss, A.P., & Russell, S.S. (Tucson: Univ. Arizona), 229 Google Scholar
Osorio, M., Lizano, S., & D’Alessio, P. 1999, ApJ, 525, 808 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stahler, S.W., Palla, F., & Ho, P.T.P., 2000, Protostars and Planets IV, ed. Mannings, V. Boss, A.P., & Russell, S.S. (Tucson: Univ. Arizona), 327 Google Scholar
Walmsley, C.M. 1995, RMA&A Conf. Ser., 1, 137 Google Scholar
Wood, D.O.S., & Churchwell, E. 1989, ApJ, 340, 265 CrossRefGoogle Scholar