Here you will find my PhD Thesis “Multiple Star Formation: Chemistry, Physics & Coevality”.
The individual thesis chapters can be found below. Along with the chapters, the cover art, propositions (an interesting requirement for thesis from Dutch Universities), summary in different languages, and additional resources can also be found here.
The full pdf can be found here.
Propositions accompanying the thesis Multiple star formation: Chemistry, physics and coevality Large, rotationally supported disks can form in early embedded protostars. (Chapter 2) Disks control the temperature profile of protostellar systems, altering the chemical composition and evolutionary process. (Chapters 3 & Chapter 4) One-third of the time, multiple protostellar systems present the conditions for further…
Multiplicity is ubiquitous for all stellar masses and ages. Multiple stellar systems are responsible for interesting phenomena in evolved stars and serve as laboratories to study stellar properties. Observations of forming stars from the pre-main sequence stage to the deeply embedded phases show that multiplicity is also commonplace in protostars. Multiple stars are born. The…
Rotationally supported disks are the eventual sites of planet formation, and during the early phases of star formation they are key in accretion processes and fragmentation. The question of when they form arises. Such disks have been observed in Pre-main sequence and Class I objects. Disk-like structures in continuum and indications of rotation have recently…
Read more Chapter 2: A Keplerian disk around a Class 0 source: ALMA observations of VLA1623A
Rotationally supported disks can form in early embedded protostars. Since the envelope during the embedded phase is not negligible, the presence of the disk most likely produces an impact of the physical conditions of the envelope. Using molecular tracers of the disk and cold gas, the region between the disk and the envelope, the disk-envelope…
A sketch of the physical structure and evolution of low-mass protostars has been outlined and well-studied. However, the physico-chemical structure is still quite blurry, and the factors that influence the chemical complexity even more so. Motivated by this question, two Class 0 protostellar systems, IRAS16293 and VLA1623 are studied in depth using ALMA observations. Chemical…
Multiple stellar systems are formed during the early stages of star formation, and fragmentation is widely agreed to be the main formation mechanism. However, it is still debated when fragmentation occurs and if all multiple protostars form and evolve contemporaneously. To address this question, the coevality, i.e. the relative evolutionary stages of components in multiple…
Fragmentation is considered as the mechanism to produce multiple protostellar systems. Fragmentation can occur at different epochs of the star forming process and in various regions of the protostar (e.g. disk or envelope). The next question to address is what factors promote or hinder fragmentation. Simulations and theory predict temperature to be a crucial factor.…
Front Cover Illustration by Nadia M. Murillo with the image “Young stars in their baby blanket of dust: ρ Ophiuchi” (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian) in the background.
A summary of the background and questions treated in this thesis, along with a summary of each of the chapters can be found in this page. The summary is written in a way that is accessible for the casual reader as well as the professional astronomer, and can be found here in several languages English…
In this page the illustrations from the thesis introduction can be found in PDF format. All illustrations are done by Nadia M. Murillo, first in ink and later digitally cleaned up. When using please credit appropriately. Requests for specific figures and formats can be made to nmurillo _at_ starformation_dot_space (substituting _at_ and _dot_ with corresponding…