Related papers: Formation of Massive Molecular Cloud Cores by Clou…
We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self…
We have performed Smoothed Particle Magneto-Hydrodynamics (SPMHD) calculations of colliding clouds to investigate the formation of massive stellar clusters, adopting a timestep criterion to prevent large divergence errors. We find that…
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…
We present a model for the formation of massive ($M > 10 M_\odot$) stars through accretion-induced collisions in the cores of embedded dense stellar clusters. This model circumvents the problem of accreting onto a star whose luminosity is…
We investigate the formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in a Milky-Way-like disk galaxy with a flat rotation curve. We perform a series of 3D adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) numerical simulations that follow both the…
The angular momentum of a molecular cloud core plays a key role in star formation, since it is directly related to the outflow and the jet emanating from the new-born star and it eventually results in the formation of the protoplanetary…
Dense, star-forming gas is believed to form at the stagnation points of large-scale ISM flows, but observational examples of this process in action are rare. We here present a giant molecular cloud (GMC) sandwiched between two colliding…
In the standard picture of isolated star formation, dense ``starless'' cores are formed out of magnetic molecular clouds due to ambipolar diffusion. Under the simplest spherical geometry, I demonstrate that ``starless'' cores formed this…
(Abridged) The formation of molecular clouds (MCs) from the diffuse interstellar gas appears to be a necessary step for star formation, as young stars invariably occur within them. However, the mechanisms controlling the formation of MCs…
Molecular clouds are a fundamental ingredient of galaxies: they are the channels that transform the diffuse gas into stars. The detailed process of how they do it is not completely understood. We review the current knowledge of molecular…
Collisions between giant molecular clouds are a potential mechanism for triggering the formation of massive stars, or even super star clusters. The trouble is identifying this process observationally and distinguishing it from other…
The formation mechanism of CO clouds observed with NANTEN2 and Mopra telescope toward the stellar cluster Westerlund 2 is studied by three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations taking into account the interstellar cooling. These…
We use magnetohydrodynamical simulations of converging flows to investigate the process of molecular cloud formation and evolution out of the magnetised ISM. Here, we investigate whether the observed subcritical HI clouds can become…
W3 is one of the most outstanding regions of high-mass star formation in the outer solar circle, including two active star-forming clouds, W3 Main and W3(OH). Based on a new analysis of the $^{12}$CO data obtained at 38$^{\prime\prime}$…
We present the results of a study of simulated Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) formed in a Milky Way-type galactic disk with a flat rotation curve. This simulation, which does not include star formation or feedback, produces clouds with…
Recent progress in the understanding of star formation is summarized. A consistent picture is emerging where molecular clouds form with turbulent velocity fields and clumpy substructure, imprinted already during their formation. The clouds…
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…
The most recent observational evidence seems to indicate that giant molecular clouds are predominantly gravitationally unbound objects. In this paper we show that this is a natural consequence of a scenario in which cloud-cloud collisions…
The observed rapid onset of star formation in molecular clouds requires rapid formation of dense fragments which can collapse individually before being overtaken by global gravitationally-driven flows. Many previous investigations have…
Observations of magnetic field strengths imply that molecular cloud fragments are individually close to being in a magnetically critical state, even though both magnetic field and column density measurements range over two orders of…