Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM, Talk begins 3:45 PM
Speaker: Esteban Araya, Western Illinois
Abstract: High-mass stars are responsible for some of the most spectacular astronomical objects such as supernova remnants and stellar mass black holes. High-mass stars form in giant molecular clouds, generate copious amounts of ionizing photons responsible for the development of HII regions, and drive ionized jets and massive molecular outflows that contribute to the dissipation of their natal clouds. Highlights of a multi-scale effort by our group to investigate jets and outflows in high-mass star forming regions will be presented. A central component of our work has been student involvement in the search and characterization of atomic and molecular tracers of jets, outflows and the expansion of ionized gas at microwave frequencies. In particular, we are studying molecular masers as tracers of dynamic phenomena in high-mass star forming regions, including long-term variability and periodic flares, which could be indicative of episodic accretion events in young binary systems.