Filaments, Collapse and Outflows in Massive Star Formation

TL;DR

This paper uses numerical simulations to study how massive stars form rapidly through efficient accretion, outflows, and filamentary inflows, challenging traditional collapse models and highlighting the role of turbulence.

Contribution

It demonstrates that mass accretion rates during massive star formation are significantly higher than classical models predict, especially with turbulence and outflows included.

Findings

Massive stars assemble quickly with accretion rates >10^-3 Msol/yr.

Bipolar outflows create cavities that facilitate radiation escape.

Turbulence enhances accretion rates up to 10^-2 Msol/yr.

Abstract

We present results from our numerical simulations of collapsing massive molecular cloud cores. These numerical calculations show that massive stars assemble quickly with mass accretion rates exceeding 10^-3 Msol/yr and confirm that the mass accretion during the collapsing phase is much more efficient than predicted by selfsimilar collapse solutions, dM/dt ~ c^3/G. We find that during protostellar assembly out of a non-turbulent core, the mass accretion reaches 20 - 100 c^3/G. Furthermore, we explore the self-consistent structure of bipolar outflows that are produced in our three dimensional magnetized collapse simulations. These outflows produce cavities out of which radiation pressure can be released, thereby reducing the limitations on the final mass of massive stars formed by gravitational collapse. Additional enhancement of the mass accretion rate comes from accretion along filaments that are built up by supersonic turbulent motions. Our numerical calculations of collapsing turbulent cores result in mass accretion rates as high as 10^-2 Msol/yr.