Related papers: Two-Stage Fragmentation for Cluster Formation: Ana…
Star clusters stand at the intersection of much of modern astrophysics: the interstellar medium, gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution, and cosmology. Here we review observations and theoretical models for the formation, evolution, and…
A fundamental issue in star formation is understanding the precise mechanisms leading to the formation of prestellar cores, and their subsequent gravitationally unstable evolution. To address this question, we carefully construct a suite of…
The thermal and fragmentation properties of star-forming clouds have important consequences on the corresponding characteristic stellar mass. The initial composition of the gas within these clouds is a record of the nucleosynthetic products…
We have performed fully 3D simulations of the collapse of molecular cloud cores which obey the logatropic equation of state. By following the collapse of these cores from states of near hydrodynamic equilibrium, we are able to produce…
The collapse and fragmentation of initially prolate and oblate, magnetic molecular clouds is calculated in three dimensions with a gravitational, radiative hydrodynamics code. The code includes magnetic field effects in an approximate…
In order to develop a complete theory of star formation, one essentially needs to know two things: what collapses, and how long it takes. This is the second paper in a series, where we query how long a parcel of gas takes to collapse and…
In this study, the main goal is to understand the molecular cloud core collapse through the stages of first and second hydrostatic core formation. We investigate the properties of Larson's first and second cores following the evolution of…
Almost all young stars are found in multiple systems. This suggests that protostellar cores almost always fragment into multiple objects. The observed properties of multiple systems such as their separation distribution and mass ratios…
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,…
Super-sonic turbulence fragments molecular clouds (MC) into a very complex density field with density contrasts of several orders of magnitude. A fraction of the gas is locked into dense and gravitationally bound cores, which collapse as…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
We present a series of simulations of the fragmentation of a molecular cloud, leading to the formation of a cluster of protostellar cores. The purpose of these simulations is to address a specific numerical problem called artificial…
Recent surveys of dust continuum emission at sub-mm wavelengths have shown that filamentary molecular clouds are ubiquitous along the Galactic plane. These structures are inhomogeneous, with over-densities that are sometimes associated with…
Observational evidence from local star-forming regions mandates that star formation occurs shortly after, or even during, molecular cloud formation. Models of the formation of molecular clouds in large-scale converging flows have identified…
We present a detailed parameter study of collapsing turbulent cloud cores, varying the initial density profile and the initial turbulent velocity field. We systematically investigate the influence of different initial conditions on the star…
The fragmentation process of primordial-gas cores during prestellar collapse is studied using three-dimensional nested-grid hydrodynamics. Starting from the initial central number density of n \sim10^3 cm^-3, we follow the evolution of…
We study numerically the effect of varying the equation of state (EOS) on the formation of stellar clusters in turbulent molecular clouds. Our results show that the EOS plays an important role in the fragmentation of the clouds, and the…
We investigate prestellar core formation and accretion based on three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. Our simulations represent local $\sim 1$pc regions within giant molecular clouds where a supersonic turbulent flow converges,…
I review some recent work on low-mass star formation, with an emphasis on theory, basic principles, and unresolved questions. Star formation is both a gravitational fragmentation problem as well as an accretion problem. Molecular cloud…
The evolution of collapsing metal free protostellar clouds is investigated for various masses and initial conditions. We perform hydrodynamical calculations for spherically symmetric clouds taking account of radiative transfer of the…