Abstract: Ladd

Why Aren’t There More Stars?
The Battle Against Gravity in our Galaxy’s Nurseries

Ned Ladd, Bucknell University & Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Abstract: Stars form via the gravitational collapse of large, diffuse, molecular clouds that occupy much of the disk of our galaxy. However, not all of this cloud material participates in the collapse process, mainly because energy injected on a range of size scales “stirs up” the cloud material. The competition between gravitational attraction and dynamical support ultimately determines how many stars form from any cloud. I’ll discuss some of the basic ideas behind this process, and describe how astronomers measure the amount and dynamical state of cloud material using radio wavelength observations.