Accelerating star formation of dense clumps

TL;DR

This paper introduces a statistical framework demonstrating that star formation in dense clumps accelerates over time, with virial mass and core growth increasing exponentially, linking protostar and protocluster evolution.

Contribution

The study presents a novel, unified framework for understanding accelerating star formation across scales using dust temperature as an evolutionary indicator.

Findings

Virial mass increases exponentially with normalized time.

Growth timescales of protoclusters and massive protostars are comparable.

Reproduces observed luminosity evolution and dense gas star formation law.

Abstract

We present a statistical framework that establishes an accelerating star formation scenario for dense clumps using ATLASGAL and ALMAGAL samples. By employing the cumulative distribution function of dust temperature as a monotonic evolutionary indicator, we linearize clump evolution into a normalized timescale, enabling direct comparison across different samples. The virial mass of clumps increases exponentially with this normalized time, revealing an accelerating buildup of star-forming gas within protoclusters. The evolution of the maximum core mass further shows that the growth timescales of protoclusters and their embedded most massive protostars are comparable, implying a self-similar acceleration of star formation from the stellar to the protocluster scale. This unified framework naturally reproduces the observed evolution of luminosity, the core mass function, the mass growth of the most massive protostars, and the dense gas star formation law on clump scales, establishing a coherent picture of accelerating star formation across scales.