The role of low-mass star clusters in the formation of massive stars
24-07-2014 THESIS OF THE CAB
Víctor M. Rivilla defended in the Degrees Room of Module 8 of the Faculty of Sciences of the Autonomous University of Madrid his thesis work entitled "The role of low-mass star clusters in the formation of massive stars "directed by Jesús Martín-Pintado obtaining the qualification of Outstanding" Cum Laude ".
Despite the importance of massive stars as the main source of energy & nbsp; injection into the ISM of galaxies, their formation process is not & nbsp; clearly understood. To distinguish between the different theories it & nbsp; is crucial to establish how the parental cloud fragments by studying & nbsp; The distribution of low-mass stars in massive star cradles. The & nbsp; detection of this population is a challenge because it is highly & nbsp; embedded in the natal molecular material. Only deep IR, X-ray and & nbsp; radio / (sub) millimeter observations are able to penetrate into the & nbsp; massive star cradles and reveal the stellar population.
I have analyzed deep X-ray and IR archival surveys towards 3 nearby & nbsp; massive star forming regions (Orion, DR21 and Monoceros R2). I have & nbsp; studied the properties of the low-mass stellar population (e.g., & nbsp; spatial distribution, clustering, stellar densities, extinction & nbsp; distribution, evolutionary stages), and their feedback into the & nbsp; star-forming environment In particular, I have evaluated how the & nbsp; outflow-driven turbulence in dense sub-clusters of low-mass stars can & nbsp; affect the formation of massive stars. I discuss my results in the & nbsp; context of the different massive star formation theories.
I will also present new Very Large Array (VLA) and Submillimeter Array & nbsp; (SMA) observations of Orion and Monoceros R2, respectively. The & nbsp; multi-epoch VLA continuum data has allowed to study the nature of the & nbsp; radiovariability of Orion young stars. The SMA observations have & nbsp; revealed bright continuum emission and molecular hot cores towards the & nbsp; more massive stars and 11 previously unknown CO molecular outflows & nbsp; from the embedded stellar cluster.
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