ASTR8008 -- Star Formation

Semester 2, 2016

Class meeting times

Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30 - 11:30 AM
Wooley Seminar Room

Syllabus

This course covers the basics of star formation and the transition to planet formation. We begin with a survey of the physical processes that govern star-forming clouds, including magnetohydrodyanmic turbulence, gravitational instability, non-ideal MHD effects, and radiative transfer by molecules and dust grains. We then study the star formation process starting at galactic scales and working our way down, touching on topics including: star formation laws; molecular cloud formation, evolution, and disruption; collapse, fragmentation, and the origin of the initial mass function; protostellar disks and outflows; pre-main sequence stellar evolution; massive stars and feedback; and the dispersal of disks and the onset of planet formation.

Reading

Our main reference for this class will be the book Notes on Star Formation; you may find the source for the book on github. N.B. A version of the book is available on the arXiv. However, this is not the most up to date version of the book, so please use the link above or the github version, rather than the arXiv version.

For a few topics the main reference will be Physics of the Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium, by Bruce Draine. This book is well worth buying, but if you would prefer not to just for a few chapters, I have copies in my office that I can make available.

In addition, we will have supplementary readings from review articles and the research literature each week. Links are below.

Assignments

There will be 5 problem sets throughout the term. Problem sets are included in the textbook. The due dates for the problem sets are listed in the class-by-class schedule.

Every week after the first there will be a presentation from one or more students, covering the supplementary reading for that week. These will be scheduled during the first class meeting.

In addition to these assignments, there will be an oral final examination during the examination period. These will be individually scheduled.

Class-by-Class Topics and Reading

Date	Topic	Textbook	Review Reading	Literature Reading	Notes
July 25	Observing the cold ISM	Ch. 1	Kennicutt & Evans, 2012, ARA&A, 50, 531, sec. 1
July 27	Molecular line observations	Appendix A	Kennicutt & Evans, 2012, ARA&A, 50, 531, sec. 2
August 1	Observing young stars	Ch. 2	Kennicutt & Evans, 2012, ARA&A, 50, 531, sec. 3 Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 2
August 3	Chemistry and thermodynamics	Ch. 3	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 3.1-3.2	Glover et al., 2010, MNRAS, 404, 2
August 8	Gas flows and turbulence	Ch. 4	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 3.3
August 10	Magnetic fields	Ch. 5	Crutcher, 2012, ARA&A, 50, 29	Li et al., 2008, ApJ, 684, 380	Problem set 1 due
August 10 (2-4 PM)	Gravitational instability	Ch. 6	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 3.4
August 15	Feedback	Ch. 7	Krumholz et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 243	Murray et al., 2010, ApJ, 709, 191 Dale et al., 2014, MNRAS, 442, 694
August 17	Giant molecular clouds	Ch. 8	Dobbs et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 3
August 17 (2-4 PM)	Galaxy-scale star formation: observations	Ch. 9	Kennicutt & Evans, 2012, ARA&A, 50, 531, sec. 5-6	Columbo et al., 2014, ApJ, 784, 3
August 22	Galaxy-scale star formation: theory	Ch. 10	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 4
August 24	Stellar clustering	Ch. 11	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 5	Ostriker & Shetty, 2011, ApJ, 731, 41	Problem set 2 due
August 29	The IMF: observations	Ch. 12	Offner et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 53
August 31	The IMF: theory	Ch. 13	Krumholz, 2014, Phys. Rep., 539, 49, sec. 6	da Rio et al., 2012, ApJ, 748, 14
September 19	Discs and outflows: observation	Ch. 14	Li et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 173, sec. 1-2		Problem set 3 due
September 21	Discs and outflows: theory	Ch. 15	Li et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 173, sec. 3-6	Tobin et al., 2012, Nature, 492, 83 Seifreid et al., 2013, MNRAS, 432, 3320
September 28	Protostar formation	Ch. 16	Dunham et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 173, sec. 1-4
October 5	Protostellar evolution	Ch. 17	Dunham et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 173, sec. 5-9	Tomida et al., 2013, ApJ, 763, 6
October 10	Massive star formation	Ch. 18	Tan et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 149		Problem set 4 due
October 12	HII regions	Draine (2011), ch. 27		Myers et al., 2013, ApJ, 766, 97
October 17	The first stars	Ch. 19	Bromm, Rep. Prog. Phys. 76, 112901
October 19	Late stage stars and discs	Ch. 20	Alexander et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 475	Greif et al., 2011, ApJ, 737, 75
October 24	The transition to planet formation	Ch. 21	Johansen et al., 2014, PPVI, p. 547
October 26	From planetesimals to planets		Youdin & Kenyon, 2013, PSSS, p. 1	Bai & Stone, 2010, ApJ, 722, 1437	Problem set 5 due