The Final (?) Frontier of Star and Planet Formation:Piled Deeper and Wider

Michael R. Meyer Institute for Astronomy, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland

8 June 2011, Frontier Science Opportunities with the James Webb Space Telescope

COROT/Kepler as well as

WISE and Herschel results known.

SPHERE/GPI/LBTI surveys complete.

GAIA Mission complete.

SOFIA/ALMA normal operations.

LSST, ESA Cosmic Vision, and

NASA SMEX missions underway!

Context for JWST in Kourou:

Objects consisting of many mirrors may be SLIGHTLY Smaller and arrive later than they CURRENTLY appear.

2020: Complementary Capabilities:

JWST => sensitivity & field of view.ELT => resolution (spatial & spectral).

Courtesy L. Simard (TMT) and P. McCarthy (GMT)

Science Goals lead to Design Requirements

Physical Resolution: 15 pc 50 pc 150 pc 450 pc

JWST 1.65 m 1 AU 3 AU 10 AU 30 AU

10 m 7 AU 20 AU 60 AU 180 AU

ELT 1.65 m .2 AU .5 AU 1.5 AU 5 AU

10 m 1 AU 3 AU 10 AU 30 AU

Spectral Resolution : R = 100 (molecular features) JWST

R = 1000 (atomic features) JWST

R = 10,000 (30 km/sec) ELT

R = 100,000 (3 km/sec) ELT

Field of View: 2’ (star clusters within 1 kpc) JWST

1.5” (circumstellar disk at 150 pc) ELT

Science Goals as “Frontier” Opportunities:

1) From which star-forming events do most sun-like stars in the Milky Way (and other galaxies) come?

Initial Mass Function of Stars and Sub-stellar Objects

Initial Mass Function: Does it Vary with Environment?

Adapted from de Marchi et al. (2010)

NIRCam/TFI Multi-color images of Young Clusters

“Extreme” clusters within Local Group: Nearest embedded clusters to go deep:

Below hydrogen burning limit. <1 Jupiter mass

Spatial Variations in the Ratio of Stars to Sub-stellar Objects?

The HST Orion Treasury Program(Robberto et al.)

Spatial Variations in the Ratio of Stars to Sub-stellar Objects:Primordial or Dynamical Evolution?

(Andersen et al. submitted)

A ‘Cluster’ is BOUND: Total Energy < 0An Association is not (V. Ambartsumian, 1951)

And these BOUND clusters are RARE (< 10 % of SF in galactic disk).

Lada & Lada (2003); Adams (2010); Carpenter (2000); Allen et al. (2007)

What if SFE is independent of total “event” mass?

dNcl/dMcl ~ Mcl-2

Equal log-range of cluster mass contribute equally to total mass.

Then 10 % of each ends up bound, 90 % in the field.

What controls SFE and thus determines which stars end up in field?

NICMOS/HST Mosaic F810W/F110W/F150W of NGC 2024 (Liu, Meyer, Cotera, and Young 2003, AJ).

Multi-epoch PMyield relative velocity << 1 km/sec.

RV in infrared give < 0.3 km/sec

Derive V as a function of M* and cluster radius.

Cf. Proszkow et al. (2009); Ayliffe et al. (2007); Tobin et al. (2009); Jorgensen et al. (2007).

New Era in Cluster Kinematics:

Westerlund 1

MIKE Magellan Spectra:

10 supergiants B2.5-F5IV ~ 2.8 km/sec.[1.4,7.0] km/sec 96 % conf

Consistent with Virial [cf. Mengel &Tacconi 2007]Cottaar et al. (in prep).[cf. Gennaro et al. 2011]

WFC3 on HST Andersen et al. (in prep)

NIRCam/TFI R=100 images for Teff/log[g] at HBL in LMC

“Extreme” Star-Formation within 10 Mpc w/ JWST.

Gordon et al. (2008)

Potential Evidence for Variable IMFs:Mass-to-Light Ratios in Super Star Clusters

Mengel et al. (2002); M82 (Smith & Gallagher, 2001; Bastian et al. in prep)

Meyer & Greissl (2005); Greissl et al. (2010)

Integrated Spectra of Massive Star Clusters:Can distinguish Chabrier (2003) from Salpeter (1955)

Nuclear Starburst NGC 253

Science Goals as “Frontier” Opportunities:

1) From which star-forming events do most sun-like stars in the Milky Way (and other galaxies) come?

2) How can we put our current planet formation

theories to a quantitative test?

Different Flavors of Planet Formation

Direct (Non) Detections of Gas Giant Planets

No massive planets at large orbital radii.

[3 Mjup @ 30 AU]

dN/da ~ ap

Lafrenerie et al. (2007);

Biller et al. (2007);

Kasper et al. (2007);

Nielssen & Close (2009);

Heinze et al. (2010)

Focus on 3-5 um Background-limit: Cold Planets

o Beta Pic b o ~ 8 Mjupiter @ 8-15 AUo Narrow-band 4.05 umo T ~ 1400-1700 K

APP on NACO/VLT: Quanz et al. (2010)

Direct ImagingToday:

6-10 meterSurveys.

NIRCam/TFI“Sweet Spot”

Detect very low mass planets at large radii aboutthe nearest stars.(cf. Beichman et al.)

?

Population Synthesis Models:Super-earths appear to be rather common!

Ida & Lin (2004) Mordasini et al. (2009)Cf. Mayor et al. (2009)Harps, Kepler…

Planets form through collisions of smaller planetary embryos.

NASA animation of protoplanet collision based on data from Lisse et al. (2009).

…you can see them with JWST!

Miller-Ricci, Meyer, Seager, Elkins-Tanton(2009)

Sicilia-Aguilar et al. (2009)

Hot ‘PCA’s with NIRCam/TFI/MIRI

Frontier Science Opportunities with JWST?

Young cluster kinematics with NIRCam.

Spectral images of barely resolved clusters.

Measures of SSC integrated light with NIRSPEC.

Small planets in large orbits around faint primaries.

Planets in collision with NIRCam/TFI/MIRI.

JWST will play transformational roles in understanding star and planet formation.

Young Nuclear SSC in NGC 253: Normal IMF

Greissl et al. (in preparation)

SSC in NGC 253: Consistent with Field IMF

Greissl et al. (in preparation)Slope for M < 1 Msun

Pro

bab

ilit

y

*

*

*

*

*

*

Thermal IR imaging offers various advantages (in BLIP):

JWST best for faint primaries at large separations

Thermal emission of planets vs. reflected light of

planets (in particular for young

sources)

Better performance in thermal IR due to

sensitivity increase in the for surveys in future

Thermal emission

0 1 2 3 4 5

10

8

6

4

2

Sensitivity Gain (Mag)

Planet M

ass (Jupiter)

M

H

L

H

M

L

Companion Mass Ratio Distribution vs. IMF: Is there a Connection?

Kraus et al. (2011); cf. Reggiani & Meyer (submitted)