CAREER: Star Formation and Dense Gas Dynamics in Molecular Clouds

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。耶鲁大学的Hector Arce博士将提供前所未有的观测数据集，用于研究与恒星形成过程密切相关的致密气体的演化。该项目的目标是建立在核的生命周期中，流入和流出速率是如何变化的，并了解在不同演化阶段流入和流出对核的质量损失和恒星形成过程的相对影响。提出的研究还旨在确定外流在去除孤立核心和星团周围的致密气体以及在这些区域驱动湍流中的重要性。该结果将用于开发低质量原恒星中质量组装过程演化的经验模型，并用于约束核心和恒星形成的模型。这些都是了解恒星质量起源和初始质量函数的必要步骤。从事这些项目的学生和博士后将在恒星形成和分子云领域获得知识，并将具有指导、减少、分析和解释射电天文数据的经验。在阿塔卡马大型毫米波阵列望远镜时代，这将是他们未来天文事业的一笔财富。增加对科学感兴趣的少数民族高中生的数量，并向公众宣传射电天文学和干涉测量学的重要性，这也是本奖项下开展的活动所产生的重要影响。作为这项研究的一部分，观测结果将为天文学家提供从南半球观测到的恒星形成区域的（亚）毫米数据，这些数据可用于指导未来（更强大的）毫米和亚毫米望远镜进行更详细的研究。此外，这项研究将有助于促进与智利大学的合作，并为学生和博士后提供宝贵的国际研究经验。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Dr. Hector Arce (Yale University) will provide an unprecedented observational data set that will be used to study the evolution of the dense gas intimately involved in the star formation process. The goal of the project is to establish how infall and outflow rates change of over the lifetime of cores and understand the relative effect of infall and outflow at different evolutionary stages on the cores' mass loss and star formation processes. The proposed research also aims to determine the importance of outflows in the removal of dense gas surrounding isolated cores and clusters, and in driving turbulence in these regions. The results will be used to develop an empirical model of the evolution of the mass-assembling process in low-mass protostars and to constrain models of core and star formation. These are essential steps needed to understand the origin of stellar masses and the initial mass function. The students and postdoctoral fellows working on these projects will become knowledgeable in the areas of star formation and molecular clouds and will have experience conducting, reducing, analyzing and interpreting radio astronomical data. This will be an asset in their future astronomical careers in the era of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescope. Increasing the number of minority high school students that become interested in science and educating the public on the significance of radio astronomy and interferometry are important impacts that will also result from the activities carried out under this award. The observations taken as part of this study will provide the astronomical community with (sub)-millimeter data of star-forming regions observable from the southern hemisphere that can be use to guide more detailed studies with future (more powerful) millimeter and sub-millimeter telescopes. Moreover, this study will help foster collaboration with the Universidad de Chile and provide valuable international research experience to students and postdoctoral fellows.