Related papers: Interstellar MHD Turbulence and Star Formation
I discuss the role of self-gravity and radiative heating and cooling in shaping the nature of the turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) of our galaxy. The heating and cooling cause it to be highly compressible, and, in some regimes of…
An overview is presented of the main properties of the interstellar medium. Evidence is summarized that the interstellar medium is highly turbulent, driven on different length scales by various energetic processes. Large-scale turbulence…
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) is a complex, multi-phase system, where the history of the stars occurs. The processes of birth and death of stars are strongly coupled to the dynamics of the ISM. The observed chaotic and diffusive motions of…
The interstellar medium (ISM) is subject, on one hand, to heating and cooling processes that tend to segregate it into distinct phases due to thermal instability (TI), and on the other, to turbulence-driving mechanisms that tend to produce…
How does turbulence contribute to the formation and structure of the dense interstellar medium (ISM)? Molecular clouds are dense, high-pressure objects. It is usually argued that gravitational confinement causes the high pressures, and that…
We discuss HD and MHD compressible turbulence as a cloud-forming and cloud-structuring mechanism in the ISM. Results from a numerical model of the turbulent ISM at large scales suggest that the phase-like appearance of the medium, the…
We review the properties of turbulent molecular clouds (MCs), focusing on the physical processes that influence star formation (SF). MC formation appears to occur during large-scale compression of the diffuse ISM driven by supernovae,…
We discuss HD and MHD compressible turbulence as a cloud-forming and cloud-structuring mechanism in the ISM. Results from a numerical model of the turbulent ISM at large scales suggest that the phase-like appearance of the medium, the…
We discuss the role of turbulence in cloud and star formation, as observed in numerical simulations of the interstellar medium. Turbulent compression at the interfaces of colliding gas streams is responsible for the formation of…
Interstellar space is filled with a dilute mixture of charged particles, atoms, molecules and dust grains, called the interstellar medium (ISM). Understanding its physical properties and dynamical behavior is of pivotal importance to many…
Supersonic flows in the interstellar medium (ISM) are believed to be a key driver of the molecular cloud formation and evolution. Among molecular clouds' properties, the ratio between the solenoidal and compressive modes of turbulence plays…
MHD turbulence plays a central role in the physics of star-forming molecular clouds and the interstellar medium. I here show that MHD turbulence in molecular clouds must be driven to account for the observed supersonic motions in the…
(ABBREVIATED) Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics. In this review the relation between interstellar turbulence and star formation is discussed. Supersonic turbulence can provide support…
We present an analytical model of the relation between the surface density of gas and star formation rate in galaxies and clouds, as a function of the presence of supersonic turbulence and the associated structure of the interstellar…
The interstellar medium (ISM) is ubiquitously turbulent across many physically distinct environments within the Galaxy. Turbulence is key in controlling the structure and dynamics of the ISM, regulating star formation, and transporting…
We investigate the gravitational instability of galactic discs, treating stars and cold interstellar gas as two distinct components, and taking into account the phenomenology of turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM), i.e. the…
Turbulence in the intracluster medium (ICM) is driven by active galactic nuclei (AGNs) jets, by mergers, and in the wakes of infalling galaxies. It not only governs gas motion but also plays a key role in the ICM thermodynamics. Turbulence…
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…
Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer in…
Star formation is one of the least understood processes in cosmic evolution. It is difficult to formulate a general theory for star formation in part because of the wide range of physical processes involved. The interstellar gas out of…