Objective:
The goal is to bring together two communitities: the one working on star formation (mostly galactic) and the one working on the formation of young massive clusters (mostly extra-galactic). We will link galactic with extra-galactic work, optical/NIR techniques with sub-mm/mm/radio ones, the formation of stars with the one of massive star clusters - observations and theory. Views will be exchanged on topics such as the earliest phases of star and star cluster formation, ultra-compact and ultra-dense HII regions, embedded massive star and star clusters, stages at which stars and clusters emerge in the NIR and the optical, ending with young massive clusters observed in starburst.
The Format:
The format is bold and new, aiming to focus attention on the critical 12 questions in this area. Each question will be addressed by all speakers in a dedicated 1.5-2h session including a 20 min introduction and several 10-15 min contributions to finish in a 30 min general discussion (with accompanying posters).
And here are the 12 Questions:
- How are the stellar and cluster initial mass functions related and how are they influenced by the star formation history?
Coordinated by Marina Rejkuba (abstract)
- What are the effects of stellar feedback?
Coordinated by Nate Bastian and Ralf Klessen (abstract)
- What is the demographics of star formation in our Galaxy and others?
or more specifically, What is the statistical distribution of star formation environments and is it universal?
Coordinated by Tom Megeath (abstract)
- How did star formation proceed in Globular Clusters?
Coordinated by Francesca D'Antona (abstract)
- How can we merge the galactic and extragalactic views of massive star formation regions derived from images and SEDs to a coherent physical picture?
Coordinated by Juergen Steinacker (abstract)
- What governs proto-stellar mass accretion?
Coordinated by Dirk Froebrich (abstract)
- Are mergers of smaller clusters a relevant step in the formation of very massive, gravitationally bound clusters?
Coordinated by Bernhard Brandl (abstract)
- How does spiral structure affect star formation?
Coordinated by Preben Grosbol (abstract)
- How important is "primordial" mass segregation in the context of massive star cluster formation and evolution?
Coordinated by Richard de Grijs (abstract)
- What is the relationship between the properties of star clusters and the environments from which they form?
Coordinated by Kelsey Johnson and Ian Bonnell (abstract)
- What are the similarities and differences between star forming objects at different scales and in different environments, in particular between the formation stages of galactic young high mass stellar associations, galactic young massive star clusters and the super massive clusters in starburst environments (with/without AGN)? To which extent are the properties of these different objects related by simple scaling, and what are the fundamental difference between them? How does linear resolution difference between local and extragalactic sources affect this comparison?
Coordinated by Emmanuel Galliano and Leonardo Bronfman (abstract)
- Which Physics determine the stellar upper mass limit?
Coordinated by Hans Zinnecker (abstract)
How where the Questions chosen?
We called (until Dec 15th 2006) for proposals of questions around which the program would be built. The question was supposed to be:
1) of interest to both communities: star formation and star cluster formation;
2) focussed enough that it can be interestingly debated in 1.5-2h.
Tom Wilson and Markus Kissler-Patig relied then less on their wisdom and more on some local experts who got the ca. 40 questions (with authors remaining anonymous) and were asked to select the 12 most suited ones for the workshop.
(Thanks to Arjan Bik, Sabine Mengel, Fernando Comeron, Michael Sterzik, Monika Petr-Gotzens, Thomas Stanke, Silvia Leurini, Dieter Nuernberger, Mario van den Ancker, Mark Casali and Uli Kauefl for their great help).
The resulting list of question is the program above.
|
