Seminars : Documents

Radiative Feedback in Massive Star Formation at Sub-au Length Scales
Nathaniel Dylan Kee (KULeuven)

The process of forming massive stars is a competition between rapid accretion and the growing feedback of the newly born central star, especially though the extreme stellar luminosity and mass loss. However, simulations of massive star formation generally track the infalling gas only to a distance of a few au from the star. To be accreted, material must contend with these feedback processes all the way down to the stellar surface. In this near-star region, the scattering of UV photons off the spectral lines of ionized metal species can generate accelerations tens of times stronger than local gravity, providing a difficult barrier for accretion to overcome. This talk reviews the state-of-the-art in massive star formation, presents simulations of radiative feedback on these final miles of accretion, and discusses the potential role of this feedback in setting the upper mass limit of stars.