Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Star Formation Journal Club

IRAC Image of Orion Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Megeath (University of Toledo).

"It's much easier to be critical than to be correct."
Benjamin Disraeli, in a speech to the House of Commons

The Star and Planet Formation Journal Club is an informal forum for the CfA community where we discuss recent articles of interest in the literature. Our principal focus is on star and planet formation, although we also regularly discuss articles on the interstellar medium. We will meet every Wednesday during the '07-'08 school year, at 11:00 in Phillips auditorium, 60 Garden St. [city map & another]. Occasionally, because of space issues, we will meet in the M-340 conference room on the 3rd floor of 160 Concord St.

Coffee and cookies are provided, funded by passing the hat and some wheedling. Generous donations may lead to sweeter provisions. If you are looking for ideas for papers to present, a good place to start is the star formation newsletter and astro-ph.

Judging by our current attendence, we suggest that you make ~20 copies of the paper and/or handout for distribution.

Please sign up and remember the journal club motto: "It is easier to criticize than to be correct." Anyone who can find the Latin translation of this phrase will be rewarded with *extra free* coffee or cookies at the next journal club.

Upcoming Journal Clubs

Wed. April 9th
11am, Phillips

Jonathan Foster

Magnetic Fields in Dark Cloud Cores: Arecibo OH Zeeman Observations by Troland and Crutcher 2008
http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.2253

Spring Journal Club

Wed. January 16 11am, Phillips	Nate Bastian	Seminar: Young star clusters: IMFs, star-formation efficiencies, and early evolution
Wed. January 23 11am, M-340	Steven Longmore	A Minimum Column Density of 1 g cm-2 for Massive Star Formation, Krumholz & McKee, available at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0801.0442
Wed. January 30 11am, Phillips	Jens Kauffmann	Dense core compression and fragmentation induced by the scattering of hydromagnetic waves, by van Loo, Falle and Hartquist, 2007 MNRAS 376, 779
Wed. February 6 11am, Phillips	Rob Gutermuth	Characterizing the nature of embedded young stellar objects through silicate, ice and millimeter observations by Crapsi et al., 2008 Accepted to A&A, available at http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4139
Wed. February 13 11am, M-340	Rahul Shetty	The Volume Densities of GMCs in M81 by Heiner et al. 2008 ApJ 673, 788
Wed. February 20 11am, Phillips	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. February 27 11am, Phillips	Jaime Pineda	No Title
Wed. March 5 11am, M-340	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. March 12 11am, Phillips	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. March 19 11am, Phillips	Dawn Peterson	No Title
Wed. March 26 11am, M-340	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. April 2 11am, M-340	Kevin Covey	Unveiling extremely veiled T Tauri stars by Gahm et al. 2008 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0803.3006
Wed. April 9th 11am, Phillips	Jonathan Foster	Magnetic Fields in Dark Cloud Cores: Arecibo OH Zeeman Observations by Troland and Crutcher 2008 http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.2253
Wed. April 16 11am, M-340	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. April 23 11am, Phillips	No Speaker	No Title
Wed. April 30 11am, Phillips	Lori Allen	No Title
Wed. May 7 11am, M-340	Scott Wolk	No Title
Wed. May 14 11am, Phillips	No Speaker	No Title

Fall Journal Club

Wed. October 3 11am, Phillips	Peter Plavchan	Unveiling Disks Around M Dwarfs
Wed. October 10 11am, M-340	Kevin Covey	The Burst Mode of Protostellar Accretion
Wed. October 17 11am, M-340	Michael Meyer	The Stellar Mass Distribution in the Giant Star Forming Region NGC 346" by Sabbi et al. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0710.0558
Wed. October 24 11am, M-340	Jan Forbrich	On the Rapid Collapse and Evolution of Molecular Clouds, Elmegreen, 2007(ApJ 668, 1064)
Wed. October 31 11am, M-340	Jonathan Devor	Identification, Classifications, and Absolute Properties of 773 Eclipsing Binaries Found in the TrES Survey
Wed. November 7th 11am, Phillips	Jonathan Foster	Multiple protostellar systems. II. A high resolution near-infrared imaging survey in nearby star-forming regions, Duchene et al., 2007(arXiv: 0710.0827)
Wed. November 14 11am, Phillips	John Bochanski	Special Seminar: Slicing with Sloan: M dwarfs and the Milky Way I will present results from two different studies that use Sloan Digital Sky Survey observations of low-mass stars to examine the history and evolution of the Local Milky Way. I will present preliminary results from my PhD thesis that focuses on constraining the initial mass function of low-mass stars. I employ a matched SDSS + 2MASS catalog that is over two orders of magnitude larger than any previous mass function sample. The second project uses a large spectroscopic sample of low-mass stars to trace the kinematic structure of the Milky Way to heights of 1.5 kpc above the Galactic Plane. These two studies, along with ongoing research at UW, are just a few examples of vast impact that SDSS has made on Galactic astronomy.
Wed. November 21 11am, Phillips	N/A	Cancelled
Wed. November 28 11am, Phillips	Tyler Bourke	Statistics of Core Lifetimes in Numerical Simulations of Turbulent, Magnetically Supercritical Molecular Clouds, Galvan-Madrid et al., 2007(ApJ, 670, 480)
Wed. December 5 11am, Phillips	Erik Rosolowsky	The relationship between the prestellar core mass function and the stellar initial mass function, Goodwin et al., 2008 (arXiv: 0711.1749)
Wed. December 12 11am, Phillips	Sean Andrews	Demographics of transition objects, Najita, Strom, & Muzerolle, 2007, MNRAS 378, 369
Wed. December 19 11am, Phillips	Eric Mamajek	A kinematic study of the Taurus-Auriga Association, by Bertout and Genova (2006, A&A, 460, 499)