RG Lunch Talk
13 June 2008 12:30pm M340

Dr. Henrik Beuther
(MPIA, Heidelberg)

Title: Early Phases of Massive Star Formation

Abstract: 
Although massive stars are very important locally within our Galaxy as
well as in external galaxies up to the highest redshifts, the actual
massive star formation processes are still poorly constrained. I will
present recent results obtained in high-mass star formation research
mainly based on (sub)mm interferometer observations and complemented by
mid-infrared spectroscopy studies. The main questions to be discussed
are:  What are the initial conditions for massive star formation? How
do rotation, infall and disks behave in massive star formation? How do
massive gas and dust clumps fragment, and what are the fragments'
density distributions? What are the driving sources of the enigmatic
Orion-KL outflow?