THE EVOLUTION OF PROTOSTARS: INSIGHTS FROM TEN YEARS OF INFRARED SURVEYS WITH SPITZER AND HERSCHEL
M. Dunham (Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States),
A. Stutz (MPIA, Germany),
L. Allen (NOAO, United States),
N. Evans (UT Austin, United States),
W. Fischer (University of Toledo, United States),
S.T. Megeath (University of Toledo, United States),
P. Myers (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, United States),
S. Offner (Yale University, United States),
C. Poteet (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, United States),
J. Tobin (National Radio Astronomy Observatory, United States),
E. Vorobyov (University of Vienna, Austria)
Stars and planets form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. The protostellar
phase is the period during which mass accretes from the core, through an accretion disk formed by
conservation of angular momentum, and onto a hydrostatically supported protostar. It is the phase
during which the initial masses of stars and the initial conditions for planet formation are set, thus understanding
how protostars evolve is a crucial ingredient for developing a general understanding of star
and planet formation. Identification and characterization of protostars has traditionally been hindered
by the embedded nature of these objects. Over the past ten years, new observational capabilities
provided by the Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel Space Observatory have enabled wide-field
infrared surveys of entire star-forming clouds with high sensitivities, leading to remarkable progress in
our understanding of protostellar evolution. We review several key advances in the field over the past
decade, focusing both on the observations themselves and the constraints these large-area surveys
are placing on theoretical models of star formation and protostellar evolution. We also emphasize several open questions and debates and outline the future observational and theoretical work necessary
to further advance the field.
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