Monthly Notices is one of the three largest general primary astronomical research publications. It is an international journal, published by the Royal Astronomical Society. This article 1 describes its publication policy and practice.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Although fundamental for astrophysics, the processes that produce massive stars are not well understood. Large distances, high extinction, and short timescales of critical evolutionary phases make observations of these processes challenging. Lacking good observational guidance, theoretical models have remained controversial. This review offers a basic description of the collapse of a massive molecular core and a critical discussion of the three competing concepts of massive star formation: ▪  monolithic collapse in isolated cores ▪  competitive accretion in a protocluster environment ▪  stellar collisions and mergers in very dense systems We also review the observed outflows, multiplicity, and clustering properties of massive stars, the upper initial mass function and the upper mass limit. We conclude that high-mass star formation is not merely a scaled-up version of low-mass star formation with higher accretion rates, but partly a mechanism of its own, primarily owing to the role of stellar mass ...

Toward Understanding Massive Star Formation

This is the first of a series of papers presenting the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) project, a new comprehensive set of stellar evolutionary tracks and isochrones computed using MESA, a state-of-the-art open-source 1D stellar evolution package. In this work, we present models with solar-scaled abundance ratios covering a wide range of ages ($5 \leq \rm \log(Age)\;[yr] \leq 10.3$), masses ($0.1 \leq M/M_{\odot} \leq 300$), and metallicities ($-2.0 \leq \rm [Z/H] \leq 0.5$). The models are self-consistently and continuously evolved from the pre-main sequence to the end of hydrogen burning, the white dwarf cooling sequence, or the end of carbon burning, depending on the initial mass. We also provide a grid of models evolved from the pre-main sequence to the end of core helium burning for $-4.0 \leq \rm [Z/H] < -2.0$. We showcase extensive comparisons with observational constraints as well as with some of the most widely used existing models in the literature. The evolutionary tracks and isochrones can be downloaded from the project website at this http URL

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/823/2/102/pdf

Mesa isochrones and stellar tracks (mist). i. solar-scaled models

MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST). I: Solar-Scaled Models

We present a grid of radiation transfer models of axisymmetric young stellar objects (YSOs), covering a wide range of stellar masses (from 0.1 to 50 M☉) and evolutionary stages (from the early envelope infall stage to the late disk-only stage). The grid consists of 20,000 YSO models, with spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and polarization spectra computed at 10 viewing angles for each model, resulting in a total of 200,000 SEDs. We have made a careful assessment of the theoretical and observational constraints on the physical conditions of disks and envelopes in YSOs and have attempted to fully span the corresponding regions in parameter space. These models are publicly available on a dedicated Web server. In this paper we summarize the main features of our models, as well as the range of parameters explored. Having a large grid covering reasonable regions of parameter space allows us to shed light on many trends in near- and mid-IR observations of YSOs (such as changes in the spectral indices and colors of their SEDs), linking them with physical parameters (such as disk and infalling envelope parameters). In particular, we examine the dependence of the spectral indices of the model SEDs on envelope accretion rate and disk mass. In addition, we show variations of spectral indices with stellar temperature, disk inner radius, and disk flaring power for a subset of disk-only models. We also examine how changing the wavelength range of data used to calculate spectral indices affects their values. We show sample color-color plots of the entire grid as well as simulated clusters at various distances with typical Spitzer sensitivities. We find that young embedded sources generally occupy a large region of color-color space due to inclination and stellar temperature effects. Disk sources occupy a smaller region of color-color space but overlap substantially with the region occupied by embedded sources, especially in the near- and mid-IR. We identify regions in color-color space where our models indicate that only sources at a given evolutionary stage should lie. We find that, while near-IR (such as JHK) and mid-IR (such as IRAC) fluxes are useful in discriminating between stars and YSOs, and are useful for identifying very young sources, the addition of longer wavelength data such as MIPS 24 μm is extremely valuable for determining the evolutionary stage of YSOs.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/508424/pdf

Interpreting Spectral Energy Distributions from Young Stellar Objects. I. A Grid of 200,000 YSO Model SEDs

We are performing a uniform and unbiased imaging survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC; ~7° × 7°) using the IRAC (3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8 μm) and MIPS (24, 70, and 160 μm) instruments on board the Spitzer Space Telescope in the Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) survey, these agents being the interstellar medium (ISM) and stars in the LMC. This paper provides an overview of the SAGE Legacy project, including observing strategy, data processing, and initial results. Three key science goals determined the coverage and depth of the survey. The detection of diffuse ISM with column densities >1.2 × 10^(21) H cm^(-2) permits detailed studies of dust processes in the ISM. SAGE's point-source sensitivity enables a complete census of newly formed stars with masses >3 M_☉ that will determine the current star formation rate in the LMC. SAGE's detection of evolved stars with mass-loss rates >1 × 10^(-8) M_☉ yr^(-1) will quantify the rate at which evolved stars inject mass into the ISM of the LMC. The observing strategy includes two epochs in 2005, separated by 3 months, that both mitigate instrumental artifacts and constrain source variability. The SAGE data are nonproprietary. The data processing includes IRAC and MIPS pipelines and a database for mining the point-source catalogs, which will be released to the community in support of Spitzer proposal cycles 4 and 5. We present initial results on the epoch 1 data for a region near N79 and N83. The MIPS 70 and 160 μm images of the diffuse dust emission of the N79/N83 region reveal a similar distribution to the gas emissions, especially the H I 21 cm emission. The measured point-source sensitivity for the epoch 1 data is consistent with expectations for the survey. The point-source counts are highest for the IRAC 3.6 μm band and decrease dramatically toward longer wavelengths, consistent with the fact that stars dominate the point-source catalogs and the dusty objects detected at the longer wavelengths are rare in comparison. The SAGE epoch 1 point-source catalog has ~4 × 10^6 sources, and more are anticipated when the epoch 1 and 2 data are combined. Using Milky Way (MW) templates as a guide, we adopt a simplified point-source classification to identify three candidate groups—stars without dust, dusty evolved stars, and young stellar objects—that offer a starting point for this work. We outline a strategy for identifying foreground MW stars, which may comprise as much as 18% of the source list, and background galaxies, which may comprise ~12% of the source list.

/pdf/spitzer-survey-of-the-large-magellanic-cloud-surveying-the-24kyp7vdif.pdf

Hirosm Shibai

Papers

Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE). I. Overview and Initial Results