Publications of the MPIfR
Optical & Infrared
Interferometry Group
Sequentially
Triggered Star Formation in OB
Associations
Preibisch, Th. and Zinnecker, H.
Invited talk at the IAU Symposium 237: "Triggered
Star Formation in a Turbulent ISM"
held in Prague, Czech Republic, August 2006
Edited by B. G. Elmegreen and J. Palous. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp.270-277 (2007)
Abstract
We discuss observational evidence for sequential and triggered star
formation in OB associations. We first review the star formation
process in the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association, the nearest OB
association to the Sun, where several recent extensive studies have
allowed us to reconstruct the star formation history in a rather
detailed way. We then compare the observational results with those
obtained for other OB associations and with recent models of rapid
cloud and star formation in the turbulent interstellar medium. We
conclude that the formation of whole OB subgroups (each consisting of
several thousand stars) requires large-scale triggering mechanisms such
as shocks from expanding wind and supernova driven superbubbles
surrounding older subgroups. Other triggering mechanisms, like
radiatively driven implosion of globules, also operate, but seem to be
secondary processes, forming only small stellar groups rather than
whole OB subgroups with thousands of stars.
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