Disks, Interactions, and Explosions in Massive Star Formation

 

     
 

Massive stars tend to form in groups at the centers of high-pressure molecular cloud cores that give birth to clusters where they undergo a rich variety of dynamical interactions with sibling stars and dense gas.  The resulting non-hierarchical multiples tend to decay into tight binaries plus ejected high-velocity stars which are surprisingly common.    I will present laser-guide star adaptive-optics imaging of the explosive Orion Molecular Core 1 outflow powered by massive stars dynamically ejected from their parent core only 500 years ago.  I will show evidence for a pulsed, precessing jet emerging from Cepheus A where the circumstellar disk of a moderate-mass star may have assisted in the capture of a sibling star into an eccentric, non-coplanar orbit.  These results illustrate some of the complexities of massive star formation and cluster birth.   They provide insights into the astrophysics of starbursts, super-star clusters, active galactic nuclei, and the birth of plane tary systems.

John Bally