The ins and outs of star formation

Using millimeter wave observations, astronomers can probe the structure of star forming regions. Understanding the star formation process will give us better insight on how the Earth and Sun formed and will help us better understand the changes of galaxies over time. Star formation takes place in the densest parts of molecular clouds, the regions referred to as stellar cores.

The investigator seeks to understand how cores form and funnel material to the stars forming in them. The investigators will use the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) to observe dense gas surrounding forming stars at different ages. Students of diverse backgrounds, from middle-school to graduate school, will take part in this project, and will gain experience in scientific research including analyzing and interpreting radio interferometer astronomical data.

This research experience will attract underrepresented minorities to the physical sciences. Another goal is to educate the public on radio astronomy, interferometry and star formation using the ALMA observations obtained during this project for exhibits and planetarium shows.

Millimeter interferometer observations of star-forming regions will be used to probe the gas in envelopes within hundreds to thousands of astronomical units of the protostars in order to determine how material goes from the cloud in towards the inner circumstellar envelope and the protostellar system, as a consequence of gravitational infall, and how it is expelled out of the envelope due to the impact of protostellar outflows. The project aims to establish how infall and outflow rates change of over the lifetime of envelopes and understand the relative effect of infall and outflow at different stages of the protostars' mass-assembling and cores' mass-loss processes.

The project will also establish the importance of outflows in the removal of the dense core gas and how outflows impact the infalling material as protostars evolve. The results will be used to develop an empirical model of the evolution of the mass-assembling process in low-mass protostars and to constrain numerical simulations of feedback in star-forming cores.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.