Contents

• Contents
• Star Formation
  • The Birth, Life and Death of Stars
  • The Stages of Star Formation
    • From Molecular Cloud to Clump
    • From Clump to Protostar
    • From Protostar to the Main Sequence
  • Classification of Protostellar Objects
  • Summary of Thesis Contents
• Observing Star Formation Regions
  • The Theory Of Spectral Line Generation From Molecules
    • Einstein Coefficients
    • Temperature Definitions
  • Radio Telescopes and their use
    • The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
  • Methods for Reducing Telescope Data
    • Correcting the Temperature Scale
    • Rotation Diagrams
• Radiative Transfer Modelling
  • The radiative transfer equation
    • The Source Function
  • The LVG Approximation
  • The Monte Carlo Method
  • The Feautrier Method
  • The STENHOLM Method
    • Solving the Radiative Transfer Equation Along a Line of Sight
• A Generalised 2-D Radiative Transfer Program
  • Introduction
  • Generalising the STENHOLM program to run for Non-linear Molecules
    • New features
    • Source of the Einstein Coefficients
    • Setting up the model cloud
    • Re-labelling the Data Arrays
  • Using the Modified STEN Program
    • Initial setup
    • Starting the program
    • Output options
    • Input files
  • An Example Using the Modified STEN Program
  • The geometry routine for the ASTRA Program
    • Introduction
    • The model shape
    • Calculating the lines of sight
    • Calculating the ring relative velocities
    • The givevel subroutine
    • Relative velocity between two points on a line of sight
    • The midfind subroutine
  • Setting up the model cloud
    • Ring parameter calculations
  • The Lambda Iteration
    • The Emissivity Function
    • Solving the Radiative Transfer Equation
    • Statistical Equilibrium
    • Solving the Matrix Equation
    • Convergence Check
  • Calculating the Line Profiles
    • Define the line of sight from the telescope through the cloud
    • The geometry2 subroutine
    • Gridded convolution
    • Calculating the Optimum Velocity Window
    • Calculating the final output
  • Outputting the Results
  • A Modification to Allow Modelling of Dust
  • The Tcl/Tk interface
    • Using the Tcl/Tk Interface
  • Input/Output Files for the ASTRA Program
    • .stendefaults (n/a)
    • datakey.sten (n/a)
    • MODELDATA.DAT (1)
    • SHELL.DAT (8)
    • run.** (19)
    • COEFDATA.*** (2)
    • FREQ.*** (3)
    • G.*** (4)
    • OBJECTDATA.*** (14)
    • TELEDATA.*** (15)
    • MOLECDATA.*** (16)
    • stendump.txt (7)
    • datastore.tmp (18)
    • data.***
    • runshells.***
    • rundata.***
    • run##.***
    • lastcloud.***
    • makemodel.***
    • comments.txt
    • mcs Files
  • Documentation for the Helper Programs
• Testing the ASTRA program
  • Testing the geometry section
    • A Subjective Test Using the Dust Model
  • Testing by Comparison with the Spherically Symmetric Case
    • The optically thick LTE case
    • The LVG case
    • A Detailed Comparison with a 1-D Model
    • Solid Body Rotation
  • Testing for non-Spherically Symmetric Cases
    • Keplerian Rotation
    • Test Summary
• Simulated Observations of Rotating Clouds
  • Solid Body Rotation vs Keplerian Rotation
  • Dependency of Line Shape on Viewing Angle
  • The Observability of Rotation Features
  • Observing Using the JCMT
  • The Potential Usefulness of Proposed Large Telescopes
  • Effects of the Viewing Angle of the Disk
  • Limitations of the 'standard test model'
• Modelling L1544
  • Required number of disks/cylinders
  • A prolate model
  • An oblate model
  • Modelling Summary
• Bibliography
• Index