Related papers: The Formation of Distributed and Clustered Stars i…
Improving our understanding of the earliest stages of star formation is crucial to gain insight into the origin of stellar masses, multiple systems, and protoplanetary disks. We discuss recent advances made in this area thanks to detailed…
We summarize the current status of the turbulent model of star formation in turbulent molecular clouds. In this model, clouds, clumps and cores form a hierarchy of nested density fluctuations caused by the turbulence, and either collapse or…
Turbulence is thought to be a primary driving force behind the early stages of star formation. In this framework large, self gravitating, turbulent clouds fragment into smaller clouds which in turn fragment into even smaller ones. At the…
Star formation is triggered in essentially three ways: (1) the pressures from existing stars collect and squeeze nearby dense gas into gravitationally unstable configurations, (2) random compression from supersonic turbulence makes new…
Massive stars are key players in the evolution of galaxies, yet their formation pathway remains unclear. In this work, we use data from several galaxy-wide surveys to build an unbiased dataset of ~700 massive young stellar objects (MYSOs),…
Star formation involves the flow of gas and dust within molecular clouds into protostars and young stellar objects (YSOs) due to gravity. Along the way, these flows are shaped significantly by many other mechanisms, including pressure,…
I review theoretical models of star formation and how they apply across the stellar mass spectrum. Several distinct theories are under active study for massive star formation, especially Turbulent Core Accretion, Competitive Accretion and…
Observations suggest that star formation occurs in only one or two crossing times for a range of scales spanning a factor of 1000. These observations include (1) measurements of embedded cluster ages in comparison with the cloud core…
Recent studies of the nearest star-forming clouds of the Galaxy at submillimeter wavelengths with the Herschel Space Observatory have provided us with unprecedented images of the initial and boundary conditions of the star formation…
Stars are often observed to form in clusters. It is therefore important to understand how such a region of concentrated mass is assembled out of the diffuse medium and its properties eventually prescribe the important physical mechanisms…
Using numerical simulations of the formation and evolution of stellar clusters within molecular clouds, we show that the stars in clusters formed within collapsing molecular cloud clumps exhibit a constant velocity dispersion regardless of…
It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely independent of any particular model of…
In recent years, there were studies on the omnipresence and structures of filaments in star-forming regions, and the role of their fragmentation in the process of star formation. However, only a few studies analysed the evolution of…
Stars form predominantly in clusters inside dense clumps of turbulent, magnetized molecular clouds. The typical size and mass of the cluster-forming clumps are \sim 1 pc and \sim 10^2 - 10^3 M_\odot, respectively. Here, we discuss some…
The path to understanding star formation processes begins with the study of the formation of molecular clouds. The outskirts of these clouds are characterized by low column densities that allow the penetration of ultraviolet radiation,…
We review the progress made in understanding molecular cloud formation and evolution toward star formation since the first Crete conference in 1990. It now seems clear that molecular clouds in the Galaxy at least form from compressed HI…
We present the results of a series of numerical simulations of compressible, self-gravitating hydrodynamic turbulence of cluster-forming clumps in molecular clouds. We examine the role that turbulence has in the formation of gravitationally…
How does turbulence contribute to the formation and structure of the dense interstellar medium (ISM)? Molecular clouds are dense, high-pressure objects. It is usually argued that gravitational confinement causes the high pressures, and that…
The dense molecular cloud cores that form stars, like other self-gravitating objects, undergo bulk oscillations. Just at the point of gravitational instability, their fundamental oscillation mode has zero frequency. We study, using…
Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer in…