Related papers: The Density Variance Mach Number Relation in the T…
We compute the structure function scaling of the integrated intensity images of two J=1-0 13CO maps of Taurus and Perseus. The scaling exponents of the structure functions follow the velocity scaling of supersonic turbulence, suggesting…
Molecular clouds have broad linewidths suggesting turbulent supersonic motions in the clouds. These motions are usually invoked to explain why molecular clouds take much longer than a free-fall time to form stars. It has classically been…
We suggest that molecular clouds can be formed on short time scales by compressions from large scale streams in the interstellar medium (ISM). In particular, we argue that the Taurus-Auriga complex, with filaments of 10-20 pc $\times$ 2-5…
We model driven, compressible, isothermal, turbulence with Mach numbers ranging from the subsonic ($\mathcal{M} \approx 0.65$) to the highly supersonic regime ($\mathcal{M}\approx 16 $). The forcing scheme consists both solenoidal…
We have identified outflows and bubbles in the Taurus molecular cloud based on the $\sim 100$ deg$^2$ Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory $^{12}$CO(1-0) and $^{13}$CO(1-0) maps and the Spitzer young stellar object catalogs. In the main…
The total mass estimate of molecular clouds suffers from the uncertainty in the H$_2$-CO conversion factor, the so-called $X_{\rm CO}$ factor, which is used to convert the $^{12}$CO (1--0) integrated intensity to the H$_2$ column density.…
We examine the role of the interstellar magnetic field to modulate the orientation of turbulent flows within the Taurus molecular cloud using spatial gradients of thin velocity slices of 12CO and 13CO antenna temperatures. Our analysis…
We investigate the effect of star formation on turbulence in the Orion A and Ophiuchus clouds using principal component analysis (PCA). We measure the properties of turbulence by applying PCA on the spectral maps in $^{13}$CO, C$^{18}$O,…
We analyze hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent, star-forming molecular clouds that are post-processed with the photo-dissociation region astrochemistry code 3D-PDR. We investigate the sensitivity of 15 commonly applied turbulence…
Molecular clouds are to a great extent influenced by turbulent motions in the gas. Numerical and observational studies indicate that the star formation rate and efficiency crucially depend on the mixture of solenoidal and compressive modes…
We performed numerical simulations of supersonic isothermal turbulence driven by mostly compressive large-scale forcing, using both a static grid and adaptive mesh refinement with an effective resolution N=768^3. After a transient phase…
The abundance of H2 in molecular clouds, relative to the commonly used tracer CO, has only been measured toward a few embedded stars, which may be surrounded by atypical gas. We present observations of near-infrared absorption by H2, CO,…
We study the statistics of density for supersonic turbulence in a medium with magnetic pressure larger than the gaseous pressure. This study is motivated by molecular cloud research. Our simulations exhibit clumpy density structures, which…
We present observations and analysis of the low-mass star-forming region, Taurus Molecular Cloud-1 (TMC-1). CS ($J$=2-1)/N$_2$H$^+$ ($J$=1-0) and C$^{17}$O ($J$=2-1)/C$^{18}$O ($J$=2-1) were observed with FCRAO (Five College Radio Astronomy…
Turbulence plays a critical role in regulating star formation in molecular clouds and is also observed in simulations of primordial halos that host Population III (Pop III) stars. The relative velocity between baryons and dark matter at the…
We conduct numerical experiments to determine the density probability distribution function (PDF) produced in supersonic, isothermal, self-gravitating turbulence of the sort that is ubiquitous in star-forming molecular clouds. Our…
Momentum deposition by radiation pressure from young, massive stars may help to destroy molecular clouds and unbind stellar clusters by driving large-scale outflows. We extend our previous numerical radiation hydrodynamic study of…
Previous studies show that the physical structures and kinematics of a region depend significantly on the ionisation fraction. In this paper, we extend our previous studies of the effect of ionisation fractions on star formation to clouds…
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…
Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) structures are used to investigate the dependency of column density variance ({\sigma}_{\ln N}^2) in the turbulent interstellar medium on the variance of three-dimensional density ({\sigma}_{\ln\rho}^2) and…