Related papers: Modes of Star Formation in Finite Molecular Clouds
To date, most numerical simulations of molecular clouds, and star formation within them, assume a uniform density sphere or box with an imposed turbulent velocity field. In this work, we select molecular clouds from galactic scale…
The thermal properties of star-forming clouds have an important influence on how they fragment into stars, and it is suggested in this paper that the low-mass stellar IMF, which appears to be almost universal, is determined largely by the…
We study numerically the formation of molecular clouds in large-scale colliding flows including self-gravity. The models emphasize the competition between the effects of gravity on global and local scales in an isolated cloud. Global…
We discuss the mechanism of cluster formation in hierarchically collapsing molecular clouds. Recent evidence, both observational and numerical, suggests that molecular clouds (MCs) may be undergoing global, hierarchical gravitational…
The turbulent motion within molecular clouds is a key factor controlling star formation. Turbulence supports molecular cloud cores from evolving to gravitational collapse and hence sets a lower bound on the size of molecular cloud cores in…
Star formation is inefficient. Only a few percent of the available gas in molecular clouds forms stars, leading to the observed low star formation rate (SFR). The same holds when averaged over many molecular clouds, such that the SFR of…
This paper describes 3D simulations of the formation of collapsing cold clumps via thermal instability inside a larger cloud complex. The initial condition was a diffuse atomic, stationary, thermally unstable, 200pc diameter spherical cloud…
We describe an overall picture of galactic-scale star formation. Recent high-resolution magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of two-fluid dynamics with cooling/heating and thermal conduction have shown that the formation of molecular clouds…
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…
Here we model a star forming factory in which the continuous creation of stars results in a highly concentrated, massive (globular cluster-like) stellar system. We show that under very general conditions a large-scale gravitational…
We model gravitational collapse leading to star formation in a wide range of isolated disk galaxies using a three-dimensional, smoothed particle hydrodynamics code. The model galaxies include a dark matter halo and a disk of stars and…
We investigate the collapse of non-spherical substructures, such as sheets and filaments, which are ubiquitous in molecular clouds. Such non-spherical substructures collapse homologously in their interiors but are influenced by an edge…
We present measurements of the star formation efficiency (SFE) in 3D numerical simulations of driven turbulence in supercritical, ideal-MHD, and non-magnetic regimes, characterized by their mean normalized mass-to-flux ratio $\mu$, all with…
Stars are thought to form predominantly within filamentary molecular clouds. Recent studies have suggested that active star formation, including the formation of stellar clusters and massive stars, occurs within so-called "hub" structures,…
We study gravitational collapse of low-metallicity gas clouds and the formation of protostars by three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. Grain growth, non-equilibrium chemistry, molecular cooling, and chemical heating are solved in a…
We investigate the formation of both clustered and distributed populations of young stars in a single molecular cloud. We present a numerical simulation of a 10,000 solar mass elongated, turbulent, molecular cloud and the formation of over…
Observations show that galaxies and their interstellar media are pervaded by strong magnetic fields with energies in the diffuse component being at least comparable to the thermal and even as large or larger than the turbulent energy. Such…
Recent works have proposed the idea of a tidal screening scenario, in which tidal forces determine the mass that a protostar can accrete to explain the IMF. In this scenario, gravitationally unstable fragments will compete for the gas…
Stars in galaxies form in giant molecular clouds that coalesce when the atomic hydrogen is converted into molecules. There are currently two dominant models for what property of the galactic disk determines its molecular fraction: either…
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…