Related papers: Ambipolar Diffusion in Molecular Cloud Cores and t…
We follow the ambipolar-diffusion--driven formation and evolution of a fragment in a magnetically supported molecular cloud, until a hydrostatic protostellar core forms at its center. This problem was formulated in Paper I. We determine the…
Recent high-resolution studies of the L1544 protostellar core by Tafalla et al. and Williams et al. reveal the structure and kinematics of the gas. The observations of this prestellar core provide a natural test for theoretical models of…
We investigate protostellar collapse of molecular cloud cores by numerical simulations, taking into account turbulence and magnetic fields. By using the adaptive mesh refinement technique, the collapse is followed over a wide dynamic range…
In this paper we reconsider the problem of magnetic field diffusion in neutron star cores. We model the star as consisting of a mixture of neutrons, protons and electrons, and allow for particle reactions and binary collisions between…
We present results from an extensive set of simulations of gravitational fragmentation in the presence of magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion. The average fragmentation spacing in the nonlinear phase of evolution is in excellent…
We revisit the problem of the formation of dense protostellar cores due to ambipolar diffusion within magnetically supported molecular clouds, and derive an analytical expression for the core formation timescale. The resulting expression is…
In this paper, we provide a more accurate description of the evolution of the magnetic flux redistribution during prestellar core collapse by including resistive terms in the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. We focus more particularly…
We employ the first fully three-dimensional simulation to study the role of magnetic fields and ion-neutral friction in regulating gravitationally-driven fragmentation of molecular clouds. The cores in an initially subcritical cloud develop…
We investigate the question of whether ambipolar diffusion (ion-neutral drift) determines the smallest length and mass scale on which structure forms in a turbulent molecular cloud. We simulate magnetized turbulence in a mostly neutral,…
The ambipolar-diffusion theory of star formation predicts the formation of fragments in molecular clouds with mass-to-flux ratios greater than that of the parent-cloud envelope. By contrast, scenarios of turbulence-induced fragmentation do…
In giant molecular clouds (GMCs), shocks driven by converging turbulent flows create high-density, strongly-magnetized regions that are locally sheetlike. In previous work, we showed that within these layers, dense filaments and embedded…
We study the effect of the non-linear process of ambipolar diffusion (joint transport of magnetic flux and charged particles relative to neutral particles) on the long-term behavior of a non-uniform magnetic field in a one-dimensional…
Stars generally form faster than the ambipolar diffusion time, suggesting that several processes short circuit the delay and promote a rapid collapse. These processes are considered here, including turbulence compression in the outer parts…
Observed protostellar outflows exhibit a variety of asymmetrical features, including remarkable unipolar outflows and bending outflows. Revealing the formation and early evolution of such asymmetrical protostellar outflows, especially the…
We formulate the problem of the formation and collapse of nonaxisymmetric protostellar cores in weakly ionized, self-gravitating, magnetic molecular clouds. In our formulation, molecular clouds are approximated as isothermal, thin (but with…
In a previous paper we formulated the problem of the formation and evolution of fragments (or cores) in magnetically-supported, self-gravitating molecular clouds in axisymmetric geometry, accounting for the effects of ambipolar diffusion…
We study numerically the ambipolar diffusion-driven evolution of non-rotating, magnetically subcritical, disk-like molecular clouds, assuming axisymmetry. Previous similar studies have concentrated on the formation of single magnetically…
[abridged] We investigate the velocity structure of protostellar cores that result from non-magnetic numerical models of the gravoturbulent fragmentation of molecular cloud material. A large fraction of the cores analyzed are ``quiescent'',…
We investigate numerically the combined effects of supersonic turbulence, strong magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion on cloud evolution leading to star formation. We find that, in clouds that are initially magnetically subcritical,…
We present an investigation on effect of the ion-neutral (or ambipolar) diffusion heating rate on thermal phases of a molecular cloud. We use the modeling of ambipolar diffusion with two-fluid smoothed particle hydrodynamics, as discussed…