Colloquium Abstract - Pillai - 2025Mar21

March 21, 2025

11:00am Mountain

Thushara Pillai (MIT)

 

Early High-Mass Star Formation: New Insights From ALMA and SOFIA

 

Abstract

The formation of high-mass stars remains one of the most challenging unresolved problems in star formation research. High-mass stars are cosmic engines known to dominate the energetics in galaxies. They also affect properties of the planets formed along with the young stars. The initial conditions of high-mass star formation offer critical constraints for testing competing theories of high-mass star formation. In this talk, I will present results from two projects I am leading.

Collapse in molecular clouds during star formation is controlled by self–gravity, random “turbulent” gas motions inside clouds, and interstellar magnetic fields. Past studies have revealed a detailed picture of the role of self–gravity and gas kinematics during star formation — but observational assessments of magnetic fields remain challenging. I will present highlights from the SIMPLIFI Legacy Program on SOFIA that start to clarify the role of magnetic fields in a diverse sample of high-mass star-forming clouds, and provide a framework to simplify the diversity of molecular cloud properties and its influence on high-mass star formation.

With CoCoA , I will then zoom in to scales of a few thousand AU with ALMA, analyzing the largest sample of high-mass starless core candidates within molecular clouds to identify truly high-mass starless cores, if they exist, and to characterize their properties in relation to high-mass star formation models.

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Local Host: Amy Mioduszewski

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