Case Studies In Star Formation

Case Studies in Star Formation offers an overview of our current observational and theoretical understanding in the molecular astronomy of star formation. The book is divided into six sections: the first introduces an overview of star formation and the essential language, concepts and tools specific to molecular astronomy studies. Each subsequent section focuses on individual sources, beginning with a description of large-scale surveys. The volume covers low- and high mass star formation, ionization and photodissociation regions, and concludes with the extragalactic perspective. Conventional textbooks begin with principles, ending with a few convenient examples. Through copious examples, Case Studies reflects the reality of research, which requires the creative matching of ongoing observations to theory and vice-versa, often raising as many questions as answers. This supplementary study guide enables graduate students and early researchers to bridge the gap between textbooks and the wealth of research literature.

This book explores the mechanics of star formation, the process by which matter pulls together and creates new structures. Written for science enthusiasts, the author presents an accessible explanation of how stars are born from the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds. Stars produce the chemicals that lead to life, and it is they that have enabled the conditions for planets to form and life to emerge. Although the Big Bang provided the spark of initiation, the primordial universe that it sired was born hopelessly sterile. It is only through the continued recycling of the interstellar medium, star formation, and stellar evolution that the universe has been animated beyond a chaotic mess of elementary atomic particles, radiation, dark matter, dark energy, and expanding spacetime. Using the Milky Way and the Eagle Nebula in particular as case studies, Beech follows every step of this amazing process.

This textbook introduces the reader to the basic concepts and equations that describe stellar structure. Various approximation techniques are used to solve equations, and an intuitive rather than rigorous approach is employed to interpret the properties of the stars. The book provides step-by-step instructions, helpful exercises and relevant historical lessons to familiarize students with key concepts and mathematical theories. Based upon a series of one-semester (12 weeks) elective undergraduate courses offered at the University of Regina, this book is intended for students who are interested in seeing how basic calculus and introductory physics can be applied to the understanding of the stars from their formation to their death. The text provides an intermediate stepping stone between lower-level undergraduate classes and more specialized postgraduate texts on the subject of stellar structure.

The international colloquium Open Issues in Local Star Formation and Early Stellar Evolution was focused on: the physics of young stellar objects, which are observed with increasing angular resolution by the new generation of telescopes; and the processes that triggered large scale star formation in the solar neighbourhood. The scientific presentations were not limited to these two main topics as many new and interesting results related to star formation have been obtained.; The participants presented new findings in the fields of stellar groups and associations; young stellar objects; disks; outflows and jets; the ISM conditions for star formation; and early stages of star formation. The discussions on open issues, representing problems and unanswered questions, should make this book particularly useful for researchers and PhD students.

New stars form in the dense turbulent gas clouds of galaxies, and the formation of these clouds is the subject of the IAU S237. This book is the most up-to-date review of all aspects of cloud and star formation, and one of the few compendiums available on ISM turbulence.

This thesis presents a pioneering method for gleaning the maximum information from the deepest images of the far-infrared universe obtained with the Herschel satellite, reaching galaxies fainter by an order of magnitude than in previous studies. Using these high-quality measurements, the author first demonstrates that the vast majority of galaxy star formation did not take place in merger-driven starbursts over 90% of the history of the universe, which suggests that galaxy growth is instead dominated by a steady infall of matter. The author further demonstrates that massive galaxies suffer a gradual decline in their star formation activity, providing an alternative path for galaxies to stop star formation. One of the key unsolved questions in astrophysics is how galaxies acquired their mass in the course of cosmic time. In the standard theory, the merging of galaxies plays a major role in forming new stars. Then, old galaxies abruptly stop forming stars through an unknown process. Investigating this theory requires an unbiased measure of the star formation intensity of galaxies, which has been unavailable due to the dust obscuration of stellar light.

This book contains the elaborated and updated versions of the 24 lectures given at the 43rd Saas-Fee Advanced Course. Written by four eminent scientists in the field, the book reviews the physical processes related to star formation, starting from cosmological down to galactic scales. It presents a detailed description of the interstellar medium and its link with the star formation. And it describes the main numerical computational techniques designed to solve the equations governing self-gravitating fluids used for modelling of galactic and extra-galactic systems. This book provides a unique framework which is needed to develop and improve the simulation techniques designed for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. Presented in an accessible manner it contains the present day state of knowledge of the field. It serves as an entry point and key reference to students and researchers in astronomy, cosmology, and physics.