Related papers: The Inevitable Future of the Starless Core Barnard…
The current generation of millimeter interferometers have revealed a population of compact (r <~ 0.1 pc), massive (M ~ 100 Msun) gas cores that are the likely progenitors of massive stars. I review models for the evolution of these objects…
Low-mass stars are generally understood to form by the gravitational collapse of the dense molecular clouds known as starless cores. Continuum observations have not been able to distinguish among the several different hypotheses that…
Dense low mass cores in nearby clouds like Taurus and Auriga are some of the simplest sites currently forming stars like our Sun. Because of their simplicity and proximity, dense cores offer the clearest view of the different phases of star…
The similarity between the mass and spatial distributions of pre-stellar gas cores in star-forming clouds and young stars in clusters provides strong circumstantial evidence that these gas cores are the direct progenitors of individual…
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…
New molecular line observations of the Bok globule Barnard 68 in HCO+ irrefutably confirm the complex pattern of red and blue asymmetric line profiles seen across the face of the cloud in previous observations of CS. The new observations…
Dense core collisions, previously regarded as minor in star formation, are proposed to play a significant role in structure formation around protostellar envelopes and binary formation. Using archival data of nearby star-forming regions, we…
The gravitational collapse of a spherical cloud core is investigated by numerical calculations. The initial conditions of the core lie close to the critical Bonnor-Ebert sphere with a central density of \sim 10^4 cm^{-3} in one model…
The magnetic field structure, kinematical stability, and evolutionary status of the starless dense core Barnard 68 (B68) are revealed based on the near-infrared polarimetric observations of background stars, measuring the dichroically…
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…
Physical conditions that could render a core starless(in the local Universe) is the subject of investigation in this work. To this end we studied the evolution of four starless cores, B68, L694-2, L1517B, L1689, and L1521F, a VeLLO. The…
We consider the conditions required for a cluster core to shrink, by adiabatic accretion of gas from the surrounding cluster, to densities such that stellar collisions are a likely outcome. We show that the maximum densities attained, and…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
The prestellar core Barnard 68 (B68) is a prototypical source to study the initial conditions and chemical processes of star formation. A previous numerical simulation suggested the southeastern bullet is impacting on the main body of B68.…
We investigate the Hierarchical Gravitational Fragmentation scenario through numerical simulations of the prestellar stages of the collapse of a marginally gravitationally unstable isothermal sphere immersed in a strongly gravitationally…
Two scenarios have been proposed for evolution of star forming cores: gravitational fragmentation of larger structures and coalescence of smaller entities which are formed from some instabilities. Here, we turn our attention to the latter…
We use numerical simulations to examine the structure of merger remnants resulting from collisions of gas-rich spiral galaxies. When the gas fraction of the progenitors is small, the remnants structurally and kinematically resemble…
Dense gas in molecular clouds is an important signature of ongoing and future star formation. We identify and track dense cores in the STARFORGE simulations, following the core evolution from birth through dispersal by stellar feedback for…
We present a direct comparison of a chemical/physical model to multitransitional observations of C18O and 13CO towards the Barnard 68 pre-stellar core. These observations provide a sensitive test for models of low UV field photodissociation…
A brief summary is presented of our current knowledge of the structure of cold molecular cloud cores that do not contain protostars, sometimes known as starless cores. The most centrally condensed starless cores are known as pre-stellar…