(Abridged) Context. Most massive stars are located in multiple stellar systems. Magnetic fields are believed to be essential in the accretion and ejection processes around single massive protostars. Aims. Our aim is to unveil the influence of magnetic fields in the formation of multiple massive stars, in particular on the fragmentation modes and properties of the multiple protostellar system. Methods. Using RAMSES, we follow the collapse of a massive pre-stellar core with (non-ideal) radiation-(magneto-)hydrodynamics. We choose a setup which promotes multiple stellar system formation. Results. In the purely hydrodynamical models, we always obtain (at least) binary systems. When more than two stars are present, their gravitational interaction triggers mergers until there are two stars left. The following gas accretion increases their orbital separation and hierarchical fragmentation occurs so that both stars host a comparable disk and stellar system which then form similar disks as well. We identify several modes of fragmentation: Toomre-unstable disk fragmentation, arm-arm collision and arm-filament collision. Disks grow in size until they fragment and become truncated as the newly-formed companion gains mass. When including magnetic fields, the picture evolves: the primary disk produces less fragments, arm-filament collision is absent. Magnetic fields reduce the initial orbital separation but do not affect its further evolution, which is mainly driven by gas accretion. With magnetic fields, the growth of individual disks is regulated even in the absence of fragmentation or truncation. Conclusions. Hierarchical fragmentation is seen in unmagnetized and magnetized models. Magnetic fields, including non-ideal effects, are important because they remove certain fragmentation modes and limit the growth of disks, which is otherwise only limited through fragmentation.
Sometimes the early star formation can be found in cold and dense molecular clouds, such as infrared dark cloud (IRDC). Considering star formation often occurs in clustered condition, HII regions may be triggering a new generation of star formation, so we can search for initial stage of massive star formation around HII regions. Based on that above, this work is to introduce one method of how to search for initial stage of massive star formation around HII regions. Towards one sample of the HII region G18.2-0.3, multiwavelength observations are carried out to investigate its physical condition…
Massive stars can be found in wide (hundreds to thousands AU) binaries with other massive stars. We use $N$-body simulations to show that any bound cluster should always have approximately one massive wide binary: one will probably form if none are present initially; and probably only one will survive if more than one are present initially. Therefore any region that contains many massive wide binaries must have been composed of many individual subregions. Observations of Cyg OB2 show that the massive wide binary fraction is at least a half (38/74) which suggests that Cyg OB2 had at least 30 di…
Ejection activities in S255IR-SMA1 and AFGL 5142 were investigated by multi-epoch VLBI observations of 22 GHz water masers, tracing bowshocks leading collimated jets. The history of ejections, revealed by the 3D maser motions and supplemented by the literature, suggests that these massive stars formed by episodic accretion, inferred via the accretion-ejection connection. This contribution centers on the role of episodic accretion in overcoming the radiation pressure problem of massive star formation - with maser VLBI and single-dish observations providing essential observational tools.
In this chapter I review theoretical models for the formation of very massive stars. After a brief overview of some relevant observations, I spend the bulk of the chapter describing two possible routes to the formation of very massive stars: formation via gas accretion, and formation via collisions between smaller stars. For direct accretion, I discuss the problems of how interstellar gas may be prevented from fragmenting so that it is available for incorporation into a single very massive star, and I discuss the problems presented for massive star formation by feedback in the form of radiatio…
This review examines the state-of-the-art knowledge of high-mass star and massive cluster formation, gained from ambitious observational surveys, which acknowledge the multi-scale characteristics of these processes. After a brief overview of theoretical models and main open issues, we present observational searches for the evolutionary phases of high-mass star formation, first among high-luminosity sources and more recently among young massive protostars and the elusive high-mass prestellar cores. We then introduce the most likely evolutionary scenario for high-mass star formation, which empha…
Galactic star formation scaling relations show increased scatter from kpc to sub-kpc scales. Investigating this scatter may hold important clues to how the star formation process evolves in time and space. Here, we combine different molecular gas tracers, different star formation indicators probing distinct populations of massive stars, and knowledge on the evolutionary state of each star forming region to derive star formation properties of $\sim$150 star forming complexes over the face of the Large Magellanic Cloud. We find that the rate of massive star formation ramps up when stellar cluste…
A sample of 1.3 mm continuum cores in the Dragon infrared dark cloud (also known as G28.37+0.07 or G28.34+0.06) is analyzed statistically. Based on their association with molecular outflows, the sample is divided into protostellar and starless cores. Statistical tests suggest that the protostellar cores are more massive than the starless cores, even after temperature and opacity biases are accounted for. We suggest that the mass difference indicates core mass growth since their formation. The mass growth implies that massive star formation may not have to start with massive prestellar cores, d…
We conduct a theoretical study of the formation of massive stars over a wide range of metallicities from 1e-5 to 1Zsun and evaluate the star formation efficiencies (SFEs) from prestellar cloud cores taking into account multiple feedback processes. Unlike for simple spherical accretion, in the case of disk accretion feedback processes do not set upper limits on stellar masses. At solar metallicity, launching of magneto-centrifugally-driven outflows is the dominant feedback process to set SFEs, while radiation pressure, which has been regarded to be pivotal, has only minor contribution even in t…
We briefly review the recent numerical works that have been performed to understand the formation of massive stars. After a brief description of the classical works, we review more specifically $i)$ the problem of building stars more massive than 20 $M_\odot$ and $ii)$ how to prevent the massive cores to fragment in many objects. Multi-D simulations succeed in circumventing the radiative pressure leading to the formation of massive stars although some questions are still debated regarding how is accretion exactly proceeding. While the core fragmentation is slightly reduced by the radiative fee…
Young massive clusters (YMCs) are the most intense regions of star formation in galaxies. Formulating a model for YMC formation whilst at the same time meeting the constraints from observations is highly challenging however. We show that forming YMCs requires clouds with densities $\gtrsim$ 100 cm$^{-3}$ to collide with high velocities ($\gtrsim$ 20 km s$^{-1}$). We present the first simulations which, starting from moderate cloud densities of $\sim100$ cm$^{-3}$, are able to convert a large amount of mass into stars over a time period of around 1 Myr, to produce dense massive clusters similar…
The interplay between the formation of stars, stellar feedback and cloud properties strongly influences the star formation history of giant molecular clouds. The formation of massive stars leads to a variety of stellar clusters, ranging from low stellar density OB associations to dense, gravitationally bound starburst clusters. We aimed at identifying the massive stellar content and reconstructing the star formation history of the W51 giant molecular cloud. We performed near-infrared imaging and K-band spectroscopy of the massive stars in W51. We analyzed the stellar populations using colour-m…
Using the HPC ressources of the state of Baden-Württemberg, we modelled for the first time the luminous burst from a young massive star by accretion of material from its close environment. We found that the surroundings of young massive stars are shaped as a clumpy disk whose fragments provoke outbursts once they fall onto the protostar and concluded that similar strong luminous events observed in high-mass star forming regions may be a signature of the presence of such disks.
Understanding the origin of high-mass stars is central to modern astrophysics. We shed light on this problem with simulations using a novel, adaptive-mesh, ray-tracing algorithm. These simulations consistently follow the gravitational collapse of a massive molecular cloud core, the subsequent build-up and fragmentation of the accretion disk surrounding the nascent star, and, for the first time, the interaction between its intense UV radiation field and the infalling material. We show that ionization feedback can neither stop protostellar mass growth nor suppress fragmentation. We discuss the e…
We have performed simulations of cluster formation along two regions of a spiral arm taken from a global Milky Way simulation, including photoionising feedback. One region is characterised by strongly converging flows, the other represents a more typical spiral arm region. We find that more massive clusters are able to form on shorter timescales for the region with strongly converging flows. Mergers between clusters are frequent in the case of the strongly converging flows and enable the formation of massive clusters. We compare equivalent clusters formed in simulations with and without ionisa…
The structure formation of the dense interstellar material and the fragmentation of clumps into cores is a fundamental step to understand how stars and stellar clusters form. We aim to establish a statistical view of clump fragmentation at sub-parsec scales based on a large sample of massive clumps selected from the ATLASGAL survey. We used the APEX/SABOCA camera at 350 $μ$m to image clumps at a resolution of 8.$''$5. The majority of the sample consists of massive clumps that are weak or in absorption at 24 $μ$m. We resolve rich filamentary structures and identify the population of compact sou…
We analyse N-body and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations of young star-forming regions to search for differences in the spatial distributions of massive stars compared to lower-mass stars. The competitive accretion theory of massive star formation posits that the most massive stars should sit in deeper potential wells than lower-mass stars. This may be observable in the relative surface density or spatial concentration of the most massive stars compared to other, lower-mass stars. Massive stars in cool--collapse N-body models do end up in significantly deeper potentials, and are …
Similar to their low-mass counterparts, massive stars likely form via the collapse of pre-stellar molecular cores. Recent observations suggest that most massive cores are subvirial (i.e., not supported by turbulence) and therefore are likely unstable to gravitational collapse. Here we perform radiation hydrodynamic simulations to follow the collapse of turbulent massive pre-stellar cores with subvirial and virialized initial conditions to explore how their dynamic state affects the formation of massive stars and core fragmentation into companion stars. We find that subvirial cores undergo rapi…
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. 2007, contract and grow in mass leading to the formation of massive stars. This occurs as mass is continually channeled from large radii onto the central proto-stars, which can become massive through accretion. Using SPH simulations of massive star forming clumps in a Giant Molecular Cloud, we show that clumps are initially diffuse and filamen…
The formation of massive stars is a long standing problem. Although a number of theories of massive star formation exist, ideas appear to converge to a disk-mediated accretion scenario. Here we present radiative hydrodynamic simulations of a star accreting mass via a disk embedded in a torus. We use a Monte Carlo based radiation hydrodynamics code to investigate the impact that ionizing radiation has on the torus. Ionized regions in the torus midplane are found to be either gravitationally trapped or in pressure driven expansion depending on whether or not the size of the ionized region exceed…
Stars in star clusters are thought to form in a single burst from a common progenitor cloud of molecular gas. However, massive, old globular clusters -- with ages greater than 10 billion years and masses of several hundred thousand solar masses -- often harbour multiple stellar populations, indicating that more than one star-forming event occurred during their lifetimes. Colliding stellar winds from late-stage, asymptotic-giant-branch stars are often invoked as second-generation star-formation trigger. The initial cluster masses should be at least 10 times more massive than they are today for …
We present a numerical simulation of the formation of a massive star using Monte- Carlo-based radiation hydrodynamics (RHD). The star forms via stochastic disc accretion and produces fast, radiation-driven bipolar cavities. We find that the evolution of the infall rate (considered to be the mass flux across a 1500 au spherical boundary), and the accretion rate onto the protostar, are broadly consistent with observational constraints. After 35kyr the star has a mass of 25 solar masses and is surrounded by a disc of mass 7 solar masses and 1500 au radius, and we find that the velocity field of t…
We present deep, wide-field, Ks-band (2.14 micron) images towards 87 southern massive star formation regions traced by methanol maser emission. Using point-spread function fitting, we generate 2.14 micron point source catalogues towards each of the regions. For the regions between 10 degrees and 350 degrees galactic longitude and galactic latitude +/- 1 degree, we match the 2.14 micron sources with the GLIMPSE point source catalogue to generate a combined 2.14 to 8.0 micron point source catalogue. We provide this data for the astronomical community to utilise in studies of the stellar content …
We study the formation of very metal-poor stars under protostellar radiative feedback effect. We use cosmological simulations to identify low-mass dark matter halos and star-forming gas clouds within them. We then follow protostar formation and the subsequent long-term mass accretion phase of over one million years using two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulations. We show that the critical physical process that sets the final mass is formation and expansion of a bipolar HII region. The process is similar to the formation of massive primordial stars, but radiation pressure exerted on d…
We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics to simulate the formation of a massive (10^6Msun) stellar cluster system formed from the gravitational collapse of a turbulent molecular cloud. We investigate the hierarchical clustering properties of our model system and we study the influence of the photoionizing radiation produced by the system's multiple O-type stars on the evolution of the protocluster. We find that dense gas near the ionizing sources prevents the radiation from eroding the filaments in which most of the star formation occurs and that instead, ionized gas fills pre-existing voids and…
Radiative feedback from luminous, massive stars during their formation is a key process in moderating accretion onto the stellar object. In the prior papers in this series, we showed that one form such feedback takes is UV line-driven disc ablation. Extending on this study, we now constrain the strength of this effect in the parameter range of star and disc properties appropriate to forming massive stars. Simulations show that ablation rate depends strongly on stellar parameters, but that this dependence can be parameterized as a nearly constant, fixed enhancement over the wind mass loss rate,…
(Abridged) We investigate massive star formation in turbulent, magnetized, parsec-scale clumps of molecular clouds including protostellar outflow feedback using Enzo-based MHD simulations with accreting sink particles and effective resolution $2048^3$. We find that, in the absence of regulation by magnetic fields and outflow feedback, massive stars form readily in a turbulent, moderately condensed clump of $\sim 1,600$ solar masses, along with a cluster of hundreds of lower mass stars. The massive stars are fed at high rates by (1) transient dense filaments produced by large-scale turbulent co…
We review our recent studies demonstrating that the radiation pressure problem in the formation of massive stars can be circumvented via an anisotropy of the thermal radiation field. Such an anisotropy naturally establishes with the formation of a circumstellar disk. The required angular momentum transport within the disk can be provided by developing gravitational torques. Radiative Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in the cavity regions - as previously suggested in the literature - are not required and are shown to be not occurring in the context of massive star formation.
We present a radiation hydrodynamics simulation of the formation of a massive star using a Monte Carlo treatment for the radiation field. We find that strong, high speed bipolar cavities are driven by the radiation from the protostar, and that accretion occurs stochastically from a circumstellar disc. We have computed spectral energy distributions and images at each timestep, which may in future be used to compare our models with photometric, spectroscopic, and interferometric observations of young massive stellar objects.
(Abridged abstract) We explore the formation of ultra-massive (M_{\rm WD} \gtrsim 1.05 M_\sun$), carbon-oxygen core white dwarfs resulting from single stellar evolution. We also study their evolutionary and pulsational properties and compare them with those of the ultra-massive white dwarfs with oxygen-neon cores resulting from carbon burning in single progenitor stars, and with binary merger predictions. We consider two single-star evolution scenarios for the formation of ultra-massive carbon-oxygen core white dwarfs that involve rotation of the degenerate core after core helium burning and r…
Massive stars play a dominant role in the process of clustered star formation, with their feedback into the molecular cloud through ionizing radiation, stellar winds and outflows. The formation process of massive stars is poorly constrained because of their scarcity, the short formation timescale and obscuration. By obtaining a census of the newly formed stellar population, the star formation history of the young cluster and the role of the massive stars within it can be unraveled. We aim to reconstruct the formation history of the young stellar population of the massive star-forming region RC…
The most massive stars can form via standard disk accretion - despite of the radiation pressure generated - due to the fact that the massive accretion disk yields a strong anisotropy in the radiation field, releasing most of the radiation pressure perpendicular to the disk accretion flow. Here, we analyze the self-gravity of the forming circumstellar disk as the potential major driver of the angular momentum transport in such massive disks responsible for the high accretion rates needed for the formation of massive stars. For this purpose, we perform self-gravity radiation hydrodynamics simula…
The region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with which this paper is concerned contains the highest concentration of IRAS/Spitzer sources, H I emission, and molecular clouds in this neighboring galaxy. However very few studies have been devoted to it, despite these signs of star formation. We present the first detailed study of the compact H II region N33 in the SMC by placing it in a wider context of massive star formation. Moreover, we show that N33 is a particularly interesting candidate for isolated massive star formation. This analysis is based mainly on optical ESO NTT observations, b…
We review the observational evidence for dust formation in Wolf-Rayet binary systems and in Type II Supernova ejecta. Existing theoretical models describing the condensation of solids in carbon-rich Wolf-Rayet stars and in Supernovae close by and at high redshift are discussed. We describe new modeling of carbon- and oxygen-based grain nucleation using a chemical kinetic approach applied to the ejecta of massive pair-instability Supernovae in the early universe. Finally, dust formation processes in colliding wind regions of WC binary systems are discussed.
The formation of close massive black-hole binaries is a challenge for binary evolutionary models, especially the intriguing system M33 X-7 which harbours one of the most massive stellar-mass black holes (16 solar masses) orbiting a 70 solar mass O-star every 3.5 days. In standard binary evolution theory an episode of mass transfer or common envelope is inevitable in a binary with such a small orbital period, which complicates the formation of a black hole with such a high mass. To explain this system, we discuss a new binary evolution channel (De Mink et al. 2009), in which rotational mixing p…
We compare the event rate density detected by LIGO to the comoving number density of isolated stellar progenitors and find a range for their formation redshift. Our limit depends on the threshold mass for making the black holes (BHs) but only weakly on the metallicity of their progenitor. If $10 \%$ of all BHs are in coalescing binaries, then enough progenitors have formed by $ 2< z_f < 9 $.
We briefly overview our newly developed radiation transport module for MHD simulations and two actual applications. The method combines the advantage of the speed of the Flux-Limited Diffusion approximation and the high accuracy obtained in ray-tracing methods.
The recent inference of a 70M_sun black hole (BH) in the Galactic, detached binary LB-1 has sparked cross-disciplinary debate since a stellar remnant of such large mass is well above what can be expected from stellar-evolutionary theory, especially in an enriched environment like that of the Milky Way. This study focusses on the possibilities of formation of extraordinarily massive BHs at solar and globular cluster (GC)-like metallicities via evolution of massive stellar binaries. A population-synthesis approach is followed utilizing the recently updated BSE program. BHs in the mass range of 5…
Massive-star-associated models for production of elements heavier than Fe are reviewed. The important roles of neutrinos in many of these models are discussed along with uncertainties in the relevant neutrino physics. Data on elemental abundances in metal-poor stars are presented and their constraints on diverse sources for elements heavier than Fe are emphasized.
