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Published Online January 15, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1165857

Reports

Submitted on September 12, 2008
Accepted on December 11, 2008

The Formation of Massive Star Systems by Accretion

Mark R. Krumholz 1*, Richard I. Klein 2, Christopher F. McKee 3, Stella S. R. Offner 4, Andrew J. Cunningham 5

1 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
2 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.; AX Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
3 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.; Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
4 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
5 AX Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Mark R. Krumholz , E-mail: krumholz{at}ucolick.org

Massive stars produce so much light that the radiation pressure they exert on the gas and dust around them is stronger than their gravitational attraction, a condition that has long been expected to prevent them from growing by accretion. We present three-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the collapse of a massive prestellar core and find that radiation pressure does not halt accretion. Instead, gravitational and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities channel gas onto the star system through non-axisymmetric disks and filaments that self-shield against radiation, while allowing radiation to escape through optically thin bubbles. Gravitational instabilities cause the disk to fragment and form a massive companion to the primary star. Radiation pressure does not limit stellar masses, but the instabilities that allow accretion to continue lead to small multiple systems.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Magnetic Fields in the Formation of Massive Stars.
J. M. Girart, M. T. Beltran, Q. Zhang, R. Rao, and R. Estalella (2009)
Science 324, 1408-1411
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)