Calendar

14th October 2008 at 1 p.m.

St Andrews (room 222), Glasgow SUPA VC room, Strathclyde SUPA VC Room

Star Formation: From Cores to Disks

Neal J. Evans II (University of Texas, Austin) and the c2d Team

Observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and complementary data at other wavelengths have provided more complete samples of star-forming regions. These provide constraints on theoretical models of the origin of the initial mass function and evolutionary stages.
The early stages of star formation include the separation of dense
cores from the background molecular cloud, the evolution before point source formation, the infall onto the central source, and the
formation of the disk. These events are usually associated with
changes in the SED associated with the Class System. The large sample available from the Cores to Disks (c2d) program provides good statistics on the numbers of objects in various stages, and these can be used to estimate timescales. The evolution of the disk to planetary systems is probed by studies of more evolved systems. We show that several paths are possible in this evolution. We calculate star formation rates and efficiencies and compare these to those predicted by star formation prescriptions commonly used for extragalactic astronomy. Finally, the evolution of chemical state from molecular cloud to planet forming disk is revealed by infrared spectroscopy.