Activity

The activity of our group is mainly focused on three fields of research: young stellar objects and the molecular gas inside which they form; old stars (>10⁸ yrs) and the formation of the thin galactic disk; and the formation of primordial stars and the chemical evolution of primordial gas. Akthough most of the group is made of observers, there is also an important theoretical component whose interests range from the role of magnetic field in the formation of stars, to the structure of circumstellar (protoplanetary) disks, to the acceleration process of jets from young stars, to the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The observations basically consist in spectroscopic and photometric measurements from the radio to the X regime, depending on the problem under investigation.  We also perform interferometric observations both in the radio, at cm and sub-mm wavelengths, and in the optical. Typical instruments used for our purposes are: single-dish radiotelescopes, such as the IRAM 30-m and the MPIfR 100-m antennas; interferometers such as the VLA and VLBA of NRAO, the Plateau de Bure interferometer of IRAM, and, recently, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array; optical, IR, and X telescopes, both from earth and on satellites, such as the LBT, the VLT/VLTI, the HST, Herschel and XMM.

Our main research topics may be schematically summarized as follows:

• IR-dark clouds: study of the pre-stellar phase
• Collapse and accretion phase on young stellar objects and its relationship with the outflow phenomenon
• Circumstellar and protoplanetary disks: research and analysis
• Jet: acceleration mechanism and their relationship with the disk and the molecular outflow (from brown dwarfs to OB stars)
• Chemistry of dense gas: prebiotic molecules, chemical clocks, identification of pre-stellar phase (deuteration, depletion)
• Unbiased surveies of star-forming regions; evolutionary processes in star formation; IMF; determination of evolutionary tracers
• X studies of stellar clusters
• Light elements; mixing in stars
• Thin disk evolution; radial abundance gradients; formation of the disk, evolution, nucleosynthesis
• Spectroscopy of low-mass stars in SFRs/associations: cluster formation, triggered SF, SFHs, accretion properties
• Molecules in primordial gas and interaction with cosmic background radiation
• Influence of cooling e and magnetic field on the formation of primordial stars

Publications

 List

Star Formation Group Members