Accretion Processes in Star Formation

A complete account of the underlying physical processes of accretion for graduate students and researchers.

Lee Hartmann (Author)

9780521531993, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 November 2008

346 pages, 60 b/w illus.
24.7 x 17.6 x 1.7 cm, 0.7 kg

"Readers with the background to appreciate the mathematical and astrophysical arguments the author presents will find this text a valuable review of current thinking on star formation and proto-stellar disk evolution." - The Meteorological Society

Our understanding of the formation of stars and planetary systems has changed greatly since the first edition of this book was published. This new edition has been thoroughly updated, and now includes material on molecular clouds, binaries, star clusters and the stellar initial mass function (IMF), disk evolution and planet formation. This book provides a comprehensive picture of the formation of stars and planetary systems, from their beginnings in cold clouds of molecular gas to their emergence as new suns with planet-forming disks. At each stage gravity induces an inward accretion of mass, and this is a central theme for the book. The author brings together current observations, rigorous treatments of the relevant astrophysics, and 150 illustrations, to clarify the sequence of events in star and planet formation. It is a comprehensive account of the underlying physical processes of accretion for graduate students and researchers.

1. Overview
2. Beginnings: molecular clouds
3. Initial conditions for protostellar collapse
4. Protostellar cloud collapse
5. Protostellar collapse: observations vs theory
6. Binaries, clusters, and the IMF
7. Disk accretion
8. The disks of pre-main sequence stars
9. The FU Orionis objects
10. Disk winds, jets, and magnetospheric accretion
11. Disk accretion and early stellar evolution
12. Disk evolution and planet formation
Appendixes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Astrophysics [PHVB], Astronomy, space & time [PG]