The interest in this area is understanding processes involved in (primarily) high mass star formation and in survey science. Specific topics include:
A key and very topical question is to understand the birth of stars and planets, tracing back their history to understand the possibilities for life elsewhere. It has been speculated since the 1970s that our own sun may have formed in a dense and chaotic region of high mass star birth. The latest evidence supporting this comes from abundance measurements 60Fe radionuclides in meteorites formed in the early solar nebula, which most likely was formed from frequent supernova explosions close to the environment where our Solar System formed. Such a view has profound implications for our own genesis; to follow the evolution of solar-like exoplanet systems; and to understand why formation appears to favour high metallicity systems.
For a given stellar mass, how does a star form and what is its ultimate fate? These deceptively simple questions still have no answer for the most massive stars we know of - indeed, how massive may a star become? Given the rarity of massive OB stars it might be supposed that such concerns are of comparatively minor importance. However, the evolution of galaxies is inextricably linked to their prodigious mass loss and ultimate fate as supernovae, both of which processes impart significant mechanical energy to the wider galactic environs. Given that massive stars predominantly, perhaps exclusively, form in highly clustered environments, an understanding of their global physical properties and those of the individual stars within them is clearly warranted.
An important tool in understanding starformation is the AKARI Galactic Plane Survey. Following launch in early 2006, we will pursue four science exploitation themes that we lead within the Consortium. These will provide a) a complete census of star formation and its environment throughout the whole Galactic Plane, b) a study of the interactions of small scale shocks and galactic sized supershells in triggering star formation, c) high resolution observations of the diffuse galactic plane emission to study the formation and agglomeration of dust grains, d) a survey of the galactic distribution and properties of star formation associated with infrared dark clouds.
Recent highlights of our work in the star formation area include:
