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The surroundings of massive protostars constitute an accretion disc which has numerically been shown to be subject to fragmentation and responsible for luminous accretion-driven outbursts. Moreover, it is suspected to produce close binary companions which will later strongly influence the star's future evolution in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram. We present three-dimensional gravitation-radiation-hydrodynamic numerical simulations of 100M⊙ prestellar cores. We find that accretion discs of young massive stars violently fragment without preventing the (highly variable) accretion of gaseous clumps on to the protostars. While acquiring the characteristics of a nascent low-mass companion, some disc fragments migrate on to the central massive protostar with dynamical properties showing that its final Keplerian orbit is close enough to constitute a close massive protobinary system, having a young highand a low-mass components. We conclude on the viability of the disc fragmentation channel for the formation of such short-period binaries, and that both processes - close massive binary formation and accretion bursts - may happen at the same time. FU-Orionis-type bursts, such as observed in the young high-mass star S255IR-NIRS3, may not only indicate ongoing disc fragmentation, but also be considered as a tracer for the formation of close massive binaries - progenitors of the subsequent massive spectroscopic binaries - once the high-mass component of the system will enter the main-sequence phase of its evolution. Finally, we investigate the Atacama Large (sub-)Millimeter Array observability of the disc fragments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accretion-driven luminosity outbursts are a vivid manifestation of variable mass accretion on to protostars. They are known as the so-called FU Orionis phenomenon in the context of low-mass protostars. More recently, this process has been found in models of primordial star formation. Using numerical radiation hydrodynamics simulations, we stress that present- day forming massive stars also experience variable accretion and show that this process is accompanied by luminous outbursts induced by the episodic accretion of gaseous clumps falling from the circumstellar disc on to the protostar. Consequently, the process of accretion-induced luminous flares is also conceivable in the high-mass regime of star formation and we propose to regard this phenomenon as a general mechanism that can affect protostars regardless of their mass and/or the chemical properties of the parent environment in which they form. In addition to the commonness of accretion-driven outbursts in the star formation machinery, we conjecture that luminous flares from regions hosting forming high-mass stars may be an observational implication of the fragmentation of their accretion discs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive stars that have been ejected from their parent cluster and supersonically sailing away through the interstellar medium (ISM) are classified as exiled. They generate circumstellar bow-shock nebulae that can be observed. We present two-dimensional, axisymmetric hydro-dynamical simulations of a representative sample of stellar wind bow shocks from Galactic OB stars in an ambient medium of densities ranging from nISM = 0.01 up to 10.0 cm-3. Independently of their location in the Galaxy, we confirm that the infrared is the most appropriated waveband to search for bow shocks from massive stars. Their spectral energy distribution is the convenient tool to analyse them since their emission does not depend on the temporary effects which could affect unstable, thin-shelled bow shocks. Our numerical models of Galactic bow shocks generated by high-mass (≈40 Mʘ) runaway stars yield H a fluxes which could be observed by facilities such as the SuperCOSMOS H-Alpha Survey. The brightest bow-shock nebulae are produced in the denser regions of the ISM. We predict that bow shocks in the field observed at H α by means of Rayleigh-sensitive facilities are formed around stars of initial mass larger than about 20 Mʘ. Our models of bow shocks from OB stars have the emission maximum in the wavelength range 3 ≤ λ ≤ 50 µm which can be up to several orders of magnitude brighter than the runaway stars themselves, particularly for stars of initial mass larger than 20 Mʘ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]