Related papers: Shock-triggered formation of magnetically-dominate…
We make the hypothesis that molecular cloud fragments are triaxial bodies with a large scale magnetic field oriented along the short axis. While consistent with theoretical expectations, this idea is supported by magnetic field strength…
We discuss molecular cloud formation by large-scale supersonic compressions in the diffuse warm neutral medium (WNM). Initially, a shocked layer forms, and within it, a thin cold layer. An analytical model and high-resolution 1D simulations…
Rapidly outflowing cold H-I gas is ubiquitously observed to be co-spatial with a hot phase in galactic winds, yet the ablation time of cold gas by the hot phase should be much shorter than the acceleration time. Previous work showed…
Molecular clouds, the birthplaces of stars in galaxies, form dynamically from the diffuse atomic gas of the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is also threaded by magnetic fields which have a large impact on its dynamics. In particular,…
We investigate numerically the combined effects of supersonic turbulence, strong magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion on cloud evolution leading to star formation. We find that, in clouds that are initially magnetically subcritical,…
Recent observations of neutral Galactic interstellar medium showed that filamentary structures of HI clouds are aligned with the interstellar magnetic field. Many interesting applications are proposed based on the alignment such as…
We study the self-similar collapse of an isothermal magnetized rotating cloud in the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) regime. In the limit of small distance from the accreting protostar we find an analytic solution that corresponds to…
We extend recent numerical results (Dobbs et. al. 2006) on molecular cloud formation in spiral galaxies by including a multi-phase medium. The addition of a hot phase of gas enhances the structure in the cold gas, and significantly…
Giant molecular clouds contain supersonic turbulence and simulations of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence show that these supersonic motions decay in roughly a crossing time, which is less than the estimated lifetimes of molecular clouds. Such…
We present magnetohydrodynamic simulations aimed at studying the effect of the magnetic suppression of turbulence (generated through various instabilities during the formation of molecular clouds by converging) on the subsequent star…
We describe a morphological imprint of magnetization found when considering the relative orientation of the magnetic field direction with respect to the density structures in simulated turbulent molecular clouds. This imprint was found…
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…
Galaxies comprise intricate networks of interdependent processes which together govern their evolution. Central among these are the multiplicity of feedback channels, which remain incompletely understood. One outstanding problem is the…
Stars form in dense cores of molecular clouds that are observed to be significantly magnetized. A dynamically important magnetic field presents a significant obstacle to the formation of protostellar disks. Recent studies have shown that…
Stars and planets are formed inside dense interstellar molecular clouds, by processes imprinted on the 3-dimensional (3D) morphology of the clouds. Determining the 3D structure of interstellar clouds remains challenging, due to projection…
We numerically model the collapse of magnetic rotating protostellar clouds with mass of 10 $M_{sun}$. The simulations are carried out with the help of 2D MHD code Enlil. The structure of the cloud at the isothermal stage of the collapse is…
We investigate collisions between giant molecular clouds (GMCs) as potential generators of their internal turbulence. Using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of self-gravitating, magnetized, turbulent, GMCs, we compare kinematic and…
We explore the importance of magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction in the interaction of supernova remnant (SNR) shocks with radiative gas clouds and in determining the mass and energy exchange between the clouds and the hot…
We investigate the alignment mechanism between the magnetic field and interstellar clouds formed by the collision of warm atomic gas. We find that the magnetic field, initially oriented parallel to the flow, is perturbed by a fast MHD…
How molecular clouds fragment and create the dense structures which go on to form stars is an open question. We investigate the relative importance of different energy terms (kinetic, thermal, magnetic, and gravity - both self-gravity and…