Related papers: Variable protostellar mass accretion rates in clou…
Understanding the collapse of dense molecular cloud cores to stellar densities and the subsequent evolution of the protostar is of importance to model the feedback effects such an object has on its surrounding environment, as well as…
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…
Improving our understanding of the initial conditions and earliest stages of star formation is crucial to gain insight into the origin of stellar masses, multiple systems, and protoplanetary disks. We review the properties of low-mass dense…
Evidence abounds that young stellar objects undergo luminous bursts of intense accretion that are short compared to the time it takes to form a star. It remains unclear how much these events contribute to the main-sequence masses of the…
The idea that non steady accretion during the embedded phase of protostar evolution can produce the observed luminosity spread in the Herzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) of young clusters has recently been called into question. Observations of…
The bathtub model of the star forming interstellar medium is based on the powerful constraint that mass has to be conserved when gas flows through its various thermal and density phases, ending up eventually in a young star or being blown…
The thermal and chemical evolution of gravitationally collapsing protostellar clouds is investigated, focusing attention on their dependence on metallicity. Calculations are carried out for a range of metallicities spanning the local…
We present a model for describing the general structure of molecular clouds (MCs) at early evolutionary stages in terms of their mass-size relationship. Sizes are defined through threshold levels at which equipartitions between…
The collapse of dense cores with different metallicities is studied by hydrodynamical calculations coupled with detailed chemical and radiative processes. For this purpose, we construct a simple chemical network with non-equilibrium…
Even today in our Galaxy, stars form from gas cores in a variety of environments, which may affect the properties of resulting star and planetary systems. Here we study the role of pressure, parameterized via ambient clump mass surface…
We construct spherical, hydrostatic models of dense molecular cores and Bok globules consisting of two distinct, spatially separate gas components: a central, isothermal region surrounded by a negative-index, polytropic envelope. The clouds…
The formation mechanism of massive stars remains one of the main open problems in astrophysics, in particular the relationship between the mass of the most massive stars, and that of the cores in which they form. Numerical simulations of…
Star formation occurs within dense regions of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), however, exactly how gas collects and evolves to form individual stars and what role dense cores play remains unclear. We use the Lagrangian cell information in…
Under the assumptions that molecular clouds are nearly spatially and temporally isothermal and that the density peaks (``cores'') within them are formed by turbulent fluctuations, we argue that cores cannot reach a hydrostatic (or…
A physical model and two-dimensional numerical method for computing the evolution and spectra of protostellar clouds are described. The physical model is based on a system of magneto-gasdynamical equations, including ohmic and ambipolar…
There is currently no accepted theoretical framework for the formation of the most massive stars, and the manner in which protostars continue to accrete and grow in mass beyond \sim10Msun is still a controversial topic. In this study we use…
The rates at which mass accumulates into protostellar cores can now be predicted in numerical simulations. Our purpose here is to develop methods to compare the statistical properties of the predicted protostars with the observable…
The isothermal gravitational collapse and fragmentation of a molecular cloud region and the subsequent formation of a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The clump mass spectrum which forms during the fragmentation phase can…
Identifying the processes that determine strength, duration and variability of protostellar mass growth is a fundamental ingredient of any theory of star formation. I discuss protostellar mass accretion rates dM/dt from numerical models…
Self-similar solutions provide good descriptions for the gravitational collapse of spherical clouds or stars when the gas obeys a polytropic equation of state, $p=K\rho^\gamma$ (with $\gamma\le 4/3$). We study the behaviors of nonradial…