(Mostly) Observational Aspects of High-Mass Star Formation

Abstract

A review on current observations of high-mass star formation is given, with a little bit of theoretical background. Particular emphasis is given to the, in my opinion, most important observations to put strong constraints on models of high-mass star formation: the existence and properties of high-mass starless cores, the existence or not of isolated high-mass stars, the possible support mechanisms of starless cores, the role of filaments in the mass transport to high-mass cores, ways of characterizing cores, the binary properties, and the properties of disks around high-mass stars.