CAREER: The Role of Stellar Feedback in Star Formation

该研究小组将编写详细的计算机模型，说明恒星是如何从银河系的气体中诞生的。所有的恒星都诞生于星系中巨大的气体云中，这些气体云凝结成恒星和行星。研究人员将为确定新恒星质量的物理学编写新的计算机模型。她还将研究邻近的年轻恒星如何通过向周围注入能量来影响彼此及其诞生环境。有证据表明，我们的太阳与成千上万的兄弟姐妹一起形成，它们可能塑造了我们的太阳？年代的属性。然而，为什么像太阳这样的恒星拥有如此大的质量仍然存在争议。她的团队将模拟恒星如何与其诞生环境相互作用，并测试恒星质量起源的不同理论。研究人员将对这些模型进行综合观测，并将其与我们银河系中恒星形成区域的望远镜观测结果进行比较。该项目的教育目标是提高STEM的参与度和多样性。研究人员将使用世界望远镜（WWT）教育软件向公众传播最近令人兴奋的天文学发现。她将利用WWT为当地一些服务不足的人群创建互动实验室，还将组织研究培训，并组织一年一度的恒星形成专题讨论会。该提案旨在探索恒星形成中的两个基本问题：恒星如何获得质量？是什么决定了分子云中的恒星形成速率？PI将通过对星团形成过程进行多物理场数值模拟来解决这些问题，包括外流、风和辐射反馈。三个关键的科学目标是：1)限制核心质量在设定恒星初始质量函数中的重要性；2)评估反馈对湍流和恒星形成效率的影响；3)利用“苹果对苹果”的比较，将模拟和观测联系起来。研究人员将对这些模型进行综合观测，并直接与观测结果进行比较，利用数千小时的现有和计划中的大规模调查，以非常精细的分辨率探测致密气体和原恒星流出物。

The investigator's group will write detailed computer-models of how stars are born from gas in our galaxy. All stars are born in large clouds of gas in galaxies, which condense to form stars and planets. The investigator will write new computer models for the physics that determines the mass of new stars. She will also study how neighboring young stars influence each other and their birth environment by injecting energy into their surroundings. Evidence suggests our Sun formed together with thousands of siblings, which may have shaped our Sun?s properties. However, why stars like our Sun have the masses they do remains debated. Her team will model how stars interact with their birth environment and test different theories for the origin of star masses. The investigator will produce synthetic observations of the models and compare these to telescope observations of star-forming regions in our Milky Way galaxy. The educational goal of the project is to increase participation and diversity in STEM. The investigator will use the World Wide Telescope (WWT) educational software to communicate recent exciting astronomy discoveries to the public. She will use WWT to create interactive labs for several local underserved populations, will also organize research training and organize an annual star formation symposia.The proposal aims to explore two fundamental questions in star formation: How do stars obtain their masses? What sets the star formation rate in molecular clouds? The PI will address these questions by performing multi-physics numerical simulations of forming star clusters including outflow, wind and radiation feedback. The three key science objectives are to 1) constrain the importance of core masses in setting the stellar initial mass function, 2) evaluate the influence of feedback on turbulence and star formation efficiency, and 3) bridge simulations and observations using "apples-to-apples" comparisons. The investigator will produce synthetic observations of the models and compare directly to observations, harnessing thousands of hours of current and planned large- scale surveys probing dense gas, proto-stellar outflows with very fine resolution.