Related papers: Nonlinear Evolution of Gravitational Fragmentation…
We demonstrate that the formation of collapsing cores in subcritical clouds is accelerated by nonlinear flows, by performing three-dimensional non-ideal MHD simulations. An initial random supersonic (and trans-Alfvenic) turbulent-like flow…
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 present a parameter study of simulations of fragmentation regulated by gravity, magnetic fields, ambipolar diffusion, and nonlinear flows. The thin-sheet approximation is employed with periodic lateral boundary conditions, and the…
We employ the three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulation including ambipolar diffusion to study the gravitationally-driven fragmentation of subcritical molecular clouds, in which the gravitational fragmentation is stabilized as long…
We model molecular cloud fragmentation with thin disk non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations that include ambipolar diffusion and partial ionization that transitions from primarily ultraviolet dominated to cosmic ray dominated regimes.…
Ambipolar diffusion likely plays a pivotal role in the formation and evolution of dense cores in weakly-ionized molecular clouds. Linear analyses show that the evolutionary times and fragmentation scales are significantly greater than the…
This is the first paper about the fragmentation and mass outflow in the molecular cloud by using three-dimensional MHD nested-grid simulations. The binary star formation process is studied paying particular attention to the fragmentation of…
We extend our earlier work on ambipolar diffusion induced formation of protostellar cores in isothermal sheet-like magnetic interstellar clouds, by studying nonaxisymmetric collapse for the physically interesting regime of magnetically…
We clarify the mechanism of accelerated core formation by large-scale nonlinear flows in subcritical magnetic clouds by finding a semi-analytical formula for the core formation time and describing the physical processes that lead to them.…
We investigate the roles of magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion during prestellar core formation in turbulent giant molecular clouds (GMCs), using three-dimensional numerical simulations. Our simulations focus on the shocked layer…
We have begun a systematic numerical study of the nonlinear growth of nonaxisymmetric perturbations during the ambipolar diffusion-driven evolution of initially magnetically subcritical molecular clouds, with an eye on the formation of…
We obtain self-similar solutions that describe the gravitational collapse of nonrotating, isothermal, magnetic molecular cloud cores. We use simplifying assumptions but explicitly include the induction equation, and the semianalytic…
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…
We simulate fragmentation and gravitational collapse of cold, magnetized molecular clouds. We explore the nonlinear development of an instability mediated by ambipolar diffusion, in which the collapse rate is intermediate to fast…
A fundamental issue in star formation is understanding the precise mechanisms leading to the formation of prestellar cores, and their subsequent gravitationally unstable evolution. To address this question, we carefully construct a suite of…
Fragmentation and binary formation processes are studied using three-dimensional resistive MHD nested grid simulations. Starting with a Bonnor-Ebert isothermal cloud rotating in a uniform magnetic field, we calculate the cloud evolution…
Subsequent to Paper I, the evolution and fragmentation of a rotating magnetized cloud are studied with use of three-dimensional MHD nested-grid simulations. After the isothermal runaway collapse, an adiabatic gas forms a protostellar first…
Isolated low-mass stars are formed in dense cores of molecular clouds. In the standard picture, the cores are envisioned to condense out of strongly magnetized clouds through ambipolar diffusion. Most previous calculations based on this…
This paper re-examines the problem of ambipolar diffusion as a mechanism for the production and runaway evolution of centrally condensed molecular cloud cores, a process that has been termed the gravomagneto catastrophe. Our calculation…
Linear analysis of the formation of protostellar cores in planar magnetic interstellar clouds shows that molecular clouds exhibit a preferred length scale for collapse that depends on the mass-to-flux ratio and neutral-ion collision time…