Related papers: A bathtub model for the star-forming interstellar …
Stars and star clusters 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…
Star formation depends on the available gaseous "fuel" as well as galactic environment, with higher specific star formation rates where gas is predominantly molecular and where stellar (and dark matter) densities are higher. The partition…
In this paper we investigate the level of star formation activity within nearby molecular clouds. We employ a uniform set of infrared extinction maps to provide accurate assessments of cloud mass and structure and compare these with…
An important aspect of quenching star formation is the removal of the cold interstellar medium (ISM; non-ionised gas and dust) from a galaxy. In addition, dust grains can be destroyed in a hot or turbulent medium. The adopted timescale of…
The formation of star clusters involves the growth of smaller, gas-rich subclusters through accretion of gas from the giant molecular cloud within which the subclusters are embedded. The two main accretion mechanisms responsible for this…
Massive stars (with mass m_* > 8 solar masses) are fundamental to the evolution of galaxies, because they produce heavy elements, inject energy into the interstellar medium, and possibly regulate the star formation rate. The individual star…
The star-forming ability of a molecular cloud depends on the fraction of gas it can cycle into the dense-phase. Consequently, one of the crucial questions in reconciling star-formation in clouds is to understand the factors that control…
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
Most gas in giant molecular clouds is relatively low-density and forms star inefficiently, converting only a small fraction of its mass to stars per dynamical time. However, star formation models generally predict the existence of a…
Star formation efficiency controlled by the protostellar outflow in a single cloud core is investigated by three-dimensional resistive MHD simulations. Starting from the prestellar cloud core, the star formation process is calculated until…
We investigate how the removal of interstellar material by stellar feedback limits the efficiency of star formation in molecular clouds and how this determines the shape of the mass function of young star clusters. In particular, we derive…
Understanding how stars form, evolve and impact molecular clouds is key to understanding why star formation is such an inefficient process globally. In this paper, we use the infrared bright fraction, $f_\text{IRB}$ (the fraction of a given…
Initial conditions for star formation in clusters are estimated for protostars whose masses follow the initial mass function (IMF) from 0.05 to 10 solar masses. Star-forming infall is assumed equally likely to stop at any moment, due to gas…
During star cluster formation, ongoing mass accretion is resisted by stellar feedback in the form of protostellar outflows from the low-mass stars and photo-ionization and radiation pressure feedback from the massive stars. We model the…
A large fraction of the gas in the Galaxy is cold, dense, and molecular. If all this gas collapsed under the influence of gravity and formed stars in a local free-fall time, the star formation rate in the Galaxy would exceed that observed…
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…
Observations suggest that star formation occurs in only one or two crossing times for a range of scales spanning a factor of 1000. These observations include (1) measurements of embedded cluster ages in comparison with the cloud core…
The conversion of gas into stars is a fundamental process in astrophysics and cosmology. Stars are known to form from the gravitational collapse of dense clumps in interstellar molecular clouds, and it has been proposed that the resulting…
We present a method for modelling star-forming clouds that combines two different models of the thermal evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). In the combined model, where the densities are low enough that at least some part of the…
We present the results of a numerical study designed to address the question of whether there is a column density threshold for star formation within molecular clouds. We have simulated a large number of different clouds, with volume and…