NRAO/Socorro Colloquium Series:

Eric Keto

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics


Observations on the formation of massive stars by accretion


A number of models have been proposed to explain the earliest stages of high mass star formation and the observations of ultracompact and hypercompact HII regions. These include hot molecular cores, gravitationally trapped hypercompact HII regions, photoevaporating disks, and champagne flows. Each model is able to explain the observations of some HII regions, but no single model is capable of explaining all the observed HII regions. Each of the models might describe high mass stars in formation, but under different conditions or different evolutionary times. I will describe an initial attempt to unify these several models as variations of an ionized accretion flow with different flow rates, angular momenta, and ionization. The variations can be described in terms of several critical radii: the gravitational radius where the sound speed of the ionized gas equals the escape velocity from the star, the radius of disk formation where the gravitational force driving accretion equals the centrifugal force from the angular momentum of the flow, and the radius of ionization equilibrium. Many details remain to be worked out.






Friday, 02 December 2005
11:00am

Array Operations Center Auditorium

All NRAO employees are invited to attend via video, available in Charlottesville Room 230, Green Bank Room 137 and Tucson N505.

Local Host: Vincent Fish