Related papers: Hierarchical Cluster Assembly in Globally Collapsi…
We discuss the mechanism of cluster formation in hierarchically collapsing molecular clouds. Recent evidence, both observational and numerical, suggests that molecular clouds (MCs) may be undergoing global, hierarchical gravitational…
We present a unified description of the scenario of Global Hierarchical Collapse and fragmentation (GHC) in molecular clouds (MCs), owing to the continuous decrease of the average Jeans mass in the contracting cloud. GHC constitutes a…
We investigate the properties of "star forming regions" in a previously published numerical simulation of molecular cloud formation out of compressive motions in the warm neutral atomic interstellar medium, neglecting magnetic fields and…
Young stellar groupings and clusters have hierarchical patterns ranging from flocculent spiral arms and star complexes on the largest scale to OB associations, OB subgroups, small loose groups, clusters and cluster subclumps on the smallest…
We review recent high spatial resolution millimeter continuum and spectral line observations of (proto-)cluster regions. These observations reveal that the mass distribution of prestellar cores is consistent with the initial mass function…
We present an idealized, semi-empirical model for the evolution of gravitationally contracting molecular clouds (MCs) and their star formation rate (SFR) and efficiency (SFE). The model assumes that the instantaneous SFR is given by the…
Star formation occurs in hierarchical patterns in both space and time. Galaxies form large regions on the scale of the interstellar Jeans length and these large regions apparently fragment into giant molecular clouds and cloud cores in a…
Star clusters have hierarchical patterns in space and time, suggesting formation processes in the densest regions of a turbulent interstellar medium. Clusters also have hierarchical substructure when they are young, which makes them all…
We study the formation of giant dense cloud complexes and of stars within them by means of SPH numerical simulations of the mildly supersonic collision of gas streams (``inflows'') in the warm neutral medium (WNM). The resulting…
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…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
How mass is accumulated from cloud-scale down to individual stars is a key open question in understanding high-mass star formation. Here, we present the mass accumulation process in a hub-filament cloud G22 which is composed of four…
The structure of cloud complexes appears to be well described by a "tree structure" representation when the image is partitioned into "clouds". In this representation, the parent-child relationships are assigned according to containment.…
We show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star forming clumps, such as those observed…
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…
We provide a detailed comparison between the ``turbulent support'' (TS) and ``global hierarchical collapse'' (GHC) models for molecular clouds and star formation, their respective interpretations of the observational data, the features they…
In the hierarchical view of star formation, giant molecular gas clouds (GMCs) undergo fragmentation to form small-scale structures made up of stars and star clusters. Here we study the connection between young star clusters and cold gas…
Young massive star clusters spanning $\sim 10^4 - 10^8 M_\odot$ in mass have been observed to have similar surface brightness profiles. Recent hydrodynamical simulations of star cluster formation have also produced star clusters with this…
We investigate the time evolution of the mass distribution of pre-stellar cores (PSCs) and their transition to the initial stellar mass function (IMF) in the central parts of a molecular cloud (MC) under the assumption that the coalescence…
There is now abundant observational evidence that star formation is a highly dynamical process that connects filament hierarchies and supernova feedback from galaxy scale kpc filaments and superbubbles, to giant molecular clouds (GMCs) on…