Related papers: Cooling, Gravity and Geometry: Flow-driven Massive…
Compression in giant molecular cloud (GMC) collisions is a promising mechanism to trigger formation of massive star clusters and OB associations. We simulate colliding and non-colliding magnetised GMCs and examine the properties of…
We present a new scenario for the formation of cool cores in rich galaxy clusters based on results from recent high spatial dynamic range, adaptive mesh Eulerian hydrodynamic simulations of large-scale structure formation. We find that…
Gravity drives the collapse of molecular clouds through which stars form, yet the exact role of gravity in cloud collapse remains a complex issue. Studies point to a picture where star formation occurs in clusters. In a typical, pc-sized…
The isothermal dynamical evolution of a clumpy and turbulent molecular cloud region and its fragmentation into a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The effect of different initial density and velocity distributions, generated…
The mass and size distributions are the key characteristics of any astrophysical objects, including the densest clumps comprising the cold phase of multiphase environments. In our recent papers, we showed how individual clouds of various…
Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds…
A systematic study of the linear thermal instability of a self-gravitating magnetic molecular cloud is carried out for the case when the unperturbed background is subject to local expansion or contraction. We consider the ambipolar…
Heavy particles suspended in a turbulent flow settle faster than in a still fluid. This effect stems from a preferential sampling of the regions where the fluid flows downward and is quantified here as a function of the level of turbulence,…
The most recent observational evidence seems to indicate that giant molecular clouds are predominantly gravitationally unbound objects. In this paper we show that this is a natural consequence of a scenario in which cloud-cloud collisions…
Super-sonic turbulence fragments molecular clouds (MC) into a very complex density field with density contrasts of several orders of magnitude. A fraction of the gas is locked into dense and gravitationally bound cores, which collapse as…
Young protostellar discs are likely to be both self-gravitating, and to support grain growth to sizes where the particles decoupled from the gas. This combination could lead to short-wavelength fragmentation of the solid component in…
We test the hypothesis that the starless cores may be gravitationally bound clouds supported largely by thermal pressure by comparing observed molecular line spectra to theoretical spectra produced by a simulation that includes…
We discuss star formation in the turbulent interstellar medium. We argue that morphological appearance and dynamical evolution of the gas is primarily determined by supersonic turbulence, and that stars form via a process we call…
We present a set of numerical simulations addressing the effects of magnetic field strength and orientation on the flow-driven formation of molecular clouds. Fields perpendicular to the flows sweeping up the cloud can efficiently prevent…
This work explores the morphology and dynamical properties of cores within rich superclusters, highlighting their role as transitional structures in the large-scale structure of the Universe. Using projected and radial velocity…
Different from Milky-Way-like galaxies, discs of gas-rich galaxies are clumpy. It is believed that the clumps form because of gravitational instability. However, a necessary condition for gravitational instability to develop is that the…
We discuss the fragmentation of a filamentary cloud on the basis of a 1-dimensional hydrodynamical simulation of a self-gravitating gas cloud. The simulation shows that dense cores are produced with a semi-regular interval in space and time…
The colliding flows (CF) model is a well-supported mechanism for generating molecular clouds. However, to-date most CF simulations have focused on the formation of clouds in the normal-shock layer between head-on colliding flows. We…
The dynamical processes that control star formation in molecular clouds are not well understood, and in particular, it is unclear if rotation plays a major role in cloud evolution. We investigate the importance of rotation in cloud…
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…