Related papers: The Structure of Molecular Clouds: II - Column Den…
We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self…
Aims: We derive the probability density functions (PDFs) of column density for a complete sample of prominent molecular cloud complexes closer than 200 pc. Methods: We derive near-infrared dust extinction maps for 23 molecular cloud…
The structure of molecular clouds can be characterized with the probability distribution function (PDF) of the mass surface density. In particular, the properties of the distribution can reveal the nature of the turbulence and star…
Star formation in molecular clouds is intimately linked to their internal mass distribution. We present an unprecedentedly detailed analysis of the column density structure of a high-mass, filamentary molecular cloud, namely IRDC…
All stars are born in molecular clouds, and most in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), which thus set the star formation activity of galaxies. We first review their observed properties, including measures of mass surface density, Sigma, and…
We analyse column density and temperature maps derived from Herschel dust continuum observations of a sample of massive infrared dark clouds (G11.11-0.12, G18.82-0.28, G28.37+0.07, G28.53-0.25). We disentangle the velocity structure of the…
In this paper we investigate the level of star formation activity within nearby molecular clouds. We employ a uniform set of infrared extinction maps to provide accurate assessments of cloud mass and structure and compare these with…
We introduce a model for the large-scale, global 3D structure of molecular clouds. Motivated by the morphological appearance of clouds in surface density maps, we model clouds as cylinders, with the aim of backing out information about the…
During the last two decades, the focus of star formation research has shifted from understanding the collapse of a single dense core into a star to studying the formation hundreds to thousands of stars in molecular clouds. In this chapter,…
We aim to better understand how the spatial structure of molecular clouds is governed by turbulence. For that, we study the large-scale spatial distribution of low density molecular gas and search for characteristic length scales. We employ…
(Abridged) We present a series of decaying turbulence simulations that represent a cluster-forming clump within a molecular cloud, investigating the role of magnetic fields on the formation of potential star-forming cores. We present an…
We examine the physical parameters that affect the accumulation of gas in molecular clouds to high column densities where the formation of stars takes place. In particular, we analyze the dense gas mass fraction (DGMF) in a set of…
Constraining the physical and chemical evolution of molecular clouds is essential to our understanding of star formation. These investigations often necessitate knowledge of some local representative number density of the gas along the line…
Describing how the properties of the interstellar medium combine across size-scales is crucial for understanding star formation scaling laws and connecting Galactic and extragalactic data of molecular clouds. We describe how the statistical…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
We present an analysis of the large-scale molecular cloud structure and of the stability of clumpy structures in nearby molecular clouds. In our recent work, we identified a structural transition in molecular clouds by studying the…
Volume density is a key physical quantity controlling the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) and star formation, but it cannot be accessed directly by observations of molecular clouds. We aim at estimating the volume density…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
We investigate how the properties of Galactic giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and their denser substructures (clumps) correlate with the local star formation rate. We trace clouds using the $^{12}$CO(3-2) transition, as observed by the CO…
Recent observations of column densities in molecular clouds find lognormal distributions with power-law high-density tails. These results are often interpreted as indications that supersonic turbulence dominates the dynamics of the observed…