Related papers: Turbulent molecular clouds
The fragmentation of gas to form stars in molecular clouds is intrinsically linked to the turbulence within them. These internal motions are set at the birth of the cloud and may vary with galactic environment and as the cloud evolves. In…
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…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the primary reservoirs of cold, star-forming molecular gas in the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and thus any understanding of star formation must encompass a model for GMC formation, evolution, and…
Molecular clouds are essentially made up of atomic and molecular hydrogen, which in spite of being the simplest molecule in the ISM plays a key role in the chemical evolution of molecular clouds. Since its formation time is very long, the…
We provide a brief overview of recent advances and outstanding issues in simulations of interstellar turbulence, including isothermal models for interior structure of molecular clouds and larger-scale multiphase models designed to simulate…
In order to understand the origin of observed molecular cloud properties, it is critical to understand how clouds interact with their environments during their formation, growth, and collapse. It has been suggested that accretion-driven…
Stars 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 and most massive…
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…
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…
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…
The classical picture of a star-forming filament is a near-equilibrium structure, with collapse dependent on its gravitational criticality. Recent observations have complicated this picture, revealing filaments as a mess of apparently…
We review the main results from recent numerical simulations of turbulent fragmentation and star formation. Specifically, we discuss the observed scaling relationships, the ``quiescent'' (subsonic) nature of many star-forming cores, their…
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…
(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 review the progress made in understanding molecular cloud formation and evolution toward star formation since the first Crete conference in 1990. It now seems clear that molecular clouds in the Galaxy at least form from compressed HI…
Star clusters form in dense, hierarchically collapsing gas clouds. Bulk kinetic energy is transformed to turbulence with stars forming from cores fed by filaments. In the most compact regions, stellar feedback is least effective in removing…
A fundamental property of molecular clouds is that they are turbulent, but how this turbulence is generated and maintained is unknown. One possibility is that stars forming within the cloud regenerate turbulence via their outflows, winds…
We review the progress that has been made in observing and analyzing molecular cloud structure in recent years. Structures are self-similar over a wide range of scales with similar power law indices independent of the star forming nature of…
Research on Galactic Center star formation is making great advances, in particular due to new data from interferometers spatially resolving molecular clouds in this environment. These new results are discussed in the context of established…
How molecular clouds fragment and create the dense structures which go on to form stars is an open question. We investigate the relative importance of different energy terms (kinetic, thermal, magnetic, and gravity - both self-gravity and…