For the latest COVID-19 news and information, visit Penn State's Coronavirus Information website.

Export to Refworks Export to EndNote Email
Report an Issue

Limiting Accretion onto Massive Stars by Fragmentation-Induced Starvation [electronic resource].

Published:
Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy, 2010.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Physical Description:
12 pages : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, United States. Department of Energy, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Access Online

Availability

I Want It

Finding items...

Restrictions on Access:
Free-to-read Unrestricted online access
Summary:
Massive stars influence their surroundings through radiation, winds, and supernova explosions far out of proportion to their small numbers. However, the physical processes that initiate and govern the birth of massive stars remain poorly understood. Two widely discussed models are monolithic collapse of molecular cloud cores and competitive accretion. To learn more about massive star formation, we perform simulations of the collapse of rotating, massive, cloud cores including radiative heating by both non-ionizing and ionizing radiation using the FLASH adaptive mesh refinement code. These simulations show fragmentation from gravitational instability in the enormously dense accretion flows required to build up massive stars. Secondary stars form rapidly in these flows and accrete mass that would have otherwise been consumed by the massive star in the center, in a process that we term fragmentation-induced starvation. This explains why massive stars are usually found as members of high-order stellar systems that themselves belong to large clusters containing stars of all masses. The radiative heating does not prevent fragmentation, but does lead to a higher Jeans mass, resulting in fewer and more massive stars than would form without the heating. This mechanism reproduces the observed relation between the total stellar mass in the cluster and the mass of the largest star. It predicts strong clumping and filamentary structure in the center of collapsing cores, as has recently been observed. We speculate that a similar mechanism will act during primordial star formation.
Report Numbers:
E 1.99:slac-pub-14215
slac-pub-14215
Subject(s):
Other Subject(s):
Note:
Published through SciTech Connect.
08/25/2010.
"slac-pub-14215"
"arXiv:1005.3271"
Astrophys.J.725:134-145,2010 FT
Peters, Thomas; /ZAH, Heidelberg; Klessen, Ralf S.; /ZAH, Heidelberg /KIPAC, Menlo Park; Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark; /Amer. Museum Natural Hist.; Banerjee, Robi; /ZAH, Heidelberg; /ZAH, Heidelberg.
Funding Information:
AC02-76SF00515
View MARC record | catkey: 23496594