Related papers: Filaments, Collapse and Outflows in Massive Star F…
Brown dwarf formation and star formation efficiency are studied using a nested grid simulation that covers five orders of magnitude in spatial scale (10^4 - 0.1AU). Starting with a rotating magnetized compact cloud with a mass of 0.22…
A large fraction of the gas in the Galaxy is cold, dense, and molecular. If all this gas collapsed under the influence of gravity and formed stars in a local free-fall time, the star formation rate in the Galaxy would exceed that observed…
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…
Molecular outflows in the form of wide-angle winds and/or well-collimated jets are associated with young stellar objects of all luminosities. Independent studies have established that the mass outflow rate is proportional to L_bol^0.6 for…
The origin of supermassive black holes (with $\gtrsim\!10^9\,M_{\odot}$) in the early universe (redshift $z \sim 7$) remains poorly understood. Gravitational collapse of a massive primordial gas cloud is a promising initial process, but…
PdBI high-spatial resolution CO observations combined with near-infrared H2 data disentangle at least 7 (maybe even 9) molecular outflows in the massive star-forming region IRAS19410+2336. Position-velocity diagrams of the outflows reveal…
We review the main results from recent numerical simulations of turbulent fragmentation and star formation. Specifically, we discuss the observed scaling relationships, the ``quiescent'' (subsonic) nature of many star-forming cores, their…
One puzzle in understanding how stars form in clusters is the source of mass -- is all of the mass in place before the first stars are born, or is there an extended period when the cluster accretes material which can continuously fuel the…
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…
Motivated by recent observations which detect an outer boundary for starless cores, and evidence for time-dependent mass accretion in the Class 0 and Class I protostellar phases, we reexamine the case of spherical isothermal collapse in the…
Recent observations suggest that mass ejection and mass accretion both decline significantly with time during early protostellar evolution (Bontemps et al. 1996). In the present paper, we propose that this rapid decay of accretion/ejection…
With a one-dimensional stellar evolution model, we find that massive main-sequence stars can accrete mass at very high mass accretion rates without expanding much if they lose a significant fraction of this mass from their outer layers…
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
We review the properties of turbulent molecular clouds (MCs), focusing on the physical processes that influence star formation (SF). MC formation appears to occur during large-scale compression of the diffuse ISM driven by supernovae,…
Massive stars influence the surrounding universe far out of proportion to their numbers through ionizing radiation, supernova explosions, and heavy element production. Their formation requires the collapse of massive interstellar gas clouds…
We discuss the lifetimes and evolution of clumps and cores formed as turbulent density fluctuations in nearly isothermal molecular clouds. In the non-magnetic case, clumps are unlikely to reach a hydrostatic state, and instead are expected…
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 study numerically the formation of molecular clouds in large-scale colliding flows including self-gravity. The models emphasize the competition between the effects of gravity on global and local scales in an isolated cloud. Global…
How do stars that are more massive than the Sun form, and thus how is the stellar initial mass function (IMF) established? Such intermediate- and high-mass stars may be born from relatively massive pre-stellar gas cores, which are more…
Identifying the processes that determine strength, duration and variability of protostellar mass growth is a fundamental ingredient of any theory of star formation. I discuss protostellar mass accretion rates dM/dt from numerical models…