Related papers: Modes of Star Formation in Finite Molecular Clouds
A systematic study of the linear thermal instability of a self-gravitating magnetic molecular cloud is carried out for the case when the unperturbed background is subject to local expansion or contraction. We consider the ambipolar…
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…
To understand the formation of stars from clouds of molecular gas, one essentially needs to know two things: What gas collapses, and how long it takes to do so. We address these questions by embedding pseudo-Lagrangian tracer particles in…
Star cluster formation in giant molecular clouds involves the local collapse of the cloud into small gas-rich subclusters, which can then subsequently collide and merge to build up the final star cluster(s). In this paper, we simulate…
We present a detailed study of the collapse of molecular cloud cores using high resolution 3D adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) numerical simulations. In this first in a series of investigations our initial conditions consists of spherical…
New models are presented for star-forming condensations in clusters. In each model, the condensation mass increases linearly with radius on small scales, and more rapidly on large scales, as in "thermal-nonthermal" models. Spherical…
Motivated by recent numerical simulations of molecular cloud (MC)evolution, in which the clouds engage in global gravitational contraction, and local collapse events culminate significantly earlier than the global collapse, we investigate…
On galactic scales, the surface density of star formation appears to be well correlated with the surface density of molecular gas. This has lead many authors to suggest that there exists a causal relationship between the chemical state of…
Linear analysis of the formation of protostellar cores in planar magnetic interstellar clouds shows that molecular clouds exhibit a preferred length scale for collapse that depends on the mass-to-flux ratio and neutral-ion collision time…
We show that hydrodynamic turbulent cloud simulations naturally produce large filaments made up of a network of smaller and coherent sub-filaments. Such simulations resemble observations of filaments and fibres in nearby molecular clouds.…
Star formation takes place in filamentary molecular clouds which arise by physical processes that take place in the cold, neutral medium (CNM). We address the necessary conditions for this diffuse ($n \approx 30$ cm$^{-3}$), cold (T…
We present the results of a numerical simulation in which star formation proceeds from an initially unbound molecular cloud core. The turbulent motions, which dominate the dynamics, dissipate in shocks leaving a quiescent region which…
The evolution of molecular clouds in galactic centres is thought to differ from that in galactic discs due to a significant influence of the external gravitational potential. We present a set of numerical simulations of molecular clouds…
We review recent results of non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic models for the fragmentation of molecular clouds and the collapse of cloud cores to form protostar-disk systems. Thin-disk models can elucidate many aspects of the physical problem…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
The fragmentation process in collapsing clouds with various metallicities is studied using three-dimensional nested-grid hydrodynamics. Initial clouds are specified by three parameters: cloud metallicity, initial rotation energy and initial…
We investigate the Hierarchical Gravitational Fragmentation scenario through numerical simulations of the prestellar stages of the collapse of a marginally gravitationally unstable isothermal sphere immersed in a strongly gravitationally…
We study the linear evolution of small perturbations in self-gravitating fluid systems with magnetic fields. We consider wave-like perturbations to nonuniform filamentary and sheet-like hydrostatic equilibria in the presence of a uniform…
Magnetic fields are dynamically important in the diffuse interstellar medium. Understanding how gravitationally bound, star-forming clouds form requires modeling of the fields in a self-consistent, supernova-driven, turbulent, magnetized,…
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…