Universe Colloquium: When massive stars are born - triggered star formation and the destruction of molecular clouds

by James Dale (LMU)

Wednesday 11 Jan 2012, 16:30 → 18:00 Europe/Berlin

Seminar Room, Basement (Universe Cluster, Garching)

Star formation is one of the most important processes in the Universe and there is still much about it that we do not understand. We do not know why it is so slow and inefficient, so that the Milky Way, for example, is still forming stars after more than 100 Galactic rotations. We also do not know why the vast majority of star clusters are disrupted while they are very young, so that most stars spend most of their lives alone or in pairs. Feedback from high-mass stars may help us answer these questions. Jim will present a suite of state-of-the-art 3D hydrodynamic simulations in which he investigates whether the strong photoionizing radiation from massive O-type stars can destroy star-forming regions and disrupt the star clusters formed inside. He will show that, although such feedback can be very destructive, it also has a positive side and can trigger additional star formation by the formation of structures such as pillars and shells very much like those observed in real molecular clouds such as the famous 'Pillars of Creation' in the Eagle Nebula. Jim will discuss these two competing effects in the context of star formation as a self-regulating process.