Related papers: Global Collapses and Expansions in Star-Forming Cl…
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…
There is a growing interest in searching for coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in other stellar systems because they are thought to be one of the important factors shaping planetary atmospheres. We investigated the possible spectral signatures…
We utilize state-of-the-art 3D hydrodynamical and classical 1D stellar model atmospheres to study the influence of convection on the formation properties of various atomic and molecular spectral lines in the atmospheres of four red giant…
The thermal and chemical evolution of gravitationally collapsing protostellar clouds is investigated, focusing attention on their dependence on metallicity. Calculations are carried out for a range of metallicities spanning the local…
Under the assumptions that molecular clouds are nearly spatially and temporally isothermal and that the density peaks (``cores'') within them are formed by turbulent fluctuations, we argue that cores cannot reach a hydrostatic (or…
Magnetic fields are important contributers to the dynamics of collapsing molecular cloud cores, and can have a major effect on whether collapse results in a single protostar or fragmentation into a binary or multiple protostar system. New…
Broadening and asymmetry of spectral lines in slowly rotating late A-type stars provide evidence for high-amplitude convective motions. The properties of turbulence observed in the A-star atmospheres are not understood theoretically and…
Observations reveal concentrations of molecular line emission on the sky, called ``clumps,'' in dense, star-forming molecular clouds. These clumps are believed to be the eventual sites of star formation. We study the three-dimensional…
We develop a detailed chemical model for the starless cores of strongly magnetized molecular clouds, with the ambipolar diffusion-driven dynamic evolution of the clouds coupled to the chemistry through ion abundances. We concentrate on two…
We present multi-band photometry covering $\sim$ 5\deg $\times$ 5\deg across $\omega$ Cen collected with the Dark Energy Camera, combined to Hubble Space Telescope and Wide Field Imager data for the central regions. The unprecedented…
We use detailed numerical simulations of the coupled chemical, thermal and dynamical evolution of the gas in a turbulent molecular cloud to study the usefulness of the [CI] 609 micron and 370 micron fine structure emission lines as tracers…
We present the results of the first detailed millimeter and submillimeter molecular line survey of bright rimmed clouds, observed at FCRAO in the CO (J=1-0), C18O (J=1-0), HCO+ (J=1-0), H13CO+ (J=1-0), and N2H+ (J=1-0) transitions, and at…
Understanding the explosion mechanism and hydrodynamic evolution of core-collapse supernovae is a long-standing quest in astronomy. The asymmetries caused by the explosion are encoded into the line profiles which appear in the nebular phase…
In order to understand the origin of observed molecular cloud properties, it is critical to understand how clouds interact with their environments during their formation, growth, and collapse. It has been suggested that accretion-driven…
Using self-gravitational hydrodynamical numerical simulations, we investigated the evolution of high-density turbulent molecular clouds swept by a colliding flow. The interaction of shock waves due to turbulence produces networks of thin…
HCN is becoming a popular choice of molecule for studying star formation in both low- and high-mass regions and for other astrophysical sources from comets to high-redshift galaxies. However, a major and often overlooked difficulty with HCN…
We have mapped the large-scale structure of the Serpens cloud core using moderately optically thick (13CO(1--0) and CS(2--1)) and optically thin tracers (C18O(1--0), C34S(2--1), and N2H+(1--0)), using the 16-element focal plane array…
We recently proposed that the star-forming potential of dense molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ, i.e. the central few 100 pc) of the Milky Way is linked to their orbital dynamics, potentially giving rise to an…
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…
Models predict that atomic carbon occurs at the surface and in the process of the formation of molecular clouds, making its fine structure transitions a diagnostic of cloud formation. We study the distribution of atomic carbon in a small…