Max Planck Institute for Astronomy - Annual Report 2005

V.7 Two New Junior Research Groups at the Institute
During 2005 a third Emmy Noether Group started its
work at MPIA under the leadership of Henrick Beuther;
and Frank van den Bosch started an independent Junior
Research Group of the Max Planck Society.
Henrik Beuther: Massive Star Formation
With its Emmy Noether Program, the German Research
Association (DFG) is supporting young post-doctoral
scientists, offering them the opportunity to establish their
own junior research groups. After two such groups led
by Sebastian Wolf (Protoplanetary Disks) and Coryn
Bailer-Jones (Formation and Properties of Sub-stellar
Objects) had commenced their work in 2004, a third
Emmy Noether Group started at the MPIA in 2005 under
the lead of Henrik Beuther.
Henrik Beuther studied physics at the University of
Cologne and received his PhD from the Max Planck
Institute for Radioastronomy in Bonn. Subsequently,
he worked as a post-doc there for several years, as well
Fig. V.7.1: Henrik Beuther in front of the Königstuhl scenery.
as at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
(Cambridge, USA). His research group at the MPIA will
mainly study the early stages of the formation of massive
stars. Many questions are still open here. For instance, it
is not yet clear whether most massive stars form in accretion
processes similar to low-mass stars, or whether other
processes, such as mergers of protostars, are of major importance.
Henrik Beuther and his group plan to tackle the
issue of massive star formation from different directions
and turn their attention to the following questions: What
are the properties of massive accretion disks? What are
the effects of the initial fragmentation of massive starforming
regions? What chemical processes occur in the
dust and gas of the star-forming regions? And, what is the
role of the outflow and infall of gas?
Since massive stars form in stellar clusters and are
usually at great distances, high spatial resolution is essential
to resolving these questions. At the same time,
these regions emit intensive millimeter and submillimeter
radiation. Accordingly, Henrik Beuther wants to
concentrate on interferometric observations in these
wavebands. From late 2007 on, this will be possible
with the first telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter
Array (alma).
Henrik Beuther has already worked in this field
with other interferometers, in particular with the
Submillimeter-Array (SMA) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii,
and the interferometer on Plateau de Bure in France.
His group will continue to gain crucial experience using
existing interferometers in order to later be able to better
exploit the great capabilities of alma.
Beuther’s group is growing rapidly: one PhD student
from Argentina and one PhD student from the USA have
already accepted offers and will come to the MPIA in
summer 2006. They will deal mainly with two fields.
The first involves a so-called legacy-proposal for the
observation of massive accretion disks using the SMA.
The other project focuses on an existing data set on the
fragmentation of massive star-forming regions. Other
projects are in preparation as well.
Frank van den Bosch: Theoretical Cosmology and
Galaxy Evolution
In 2005, the cosmology group of the Institute was
able to recruit an outstanding new colleague, Frank van
den Bosch, who will head an independent research group
dealing with galaxy evolution. The head of such a group
is under no teaching obligations, and is guaranteed financial
support for his or her research for at least five years.
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