Related papers: From Molecular Clouds to the IMF: Spatial and Temp…
Context: Stars form in the cold dense cores of interstellar molecular clouds and the detailed knowledge of the spectrum of masses of such cores is clearly a key for the understanding of the origin of the IMF. To date, observations have…
The formation of stars is inextricably linked to the structure of their parental molecular clouds. Here we take a number of nearby giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and analyse their column density and mass distributions. This investigation is…
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 substantial evidence that the initial mass function (IMF) may be a function of the local star formation conditions. In particular, the IMF is predicted to flatten with increasing local luminosity density, with the formation of…
Growing evidence in recent years suggests a systematic variation of the stellar initial mass function (IMF), being top-heavy for starburst galaxies and possibly bottom-heavy for massive ellipticals. Galaxy chemical evolution simulations…
Recent cosmological hydrodynamic simulations have suggested that the first stars in the universe often form as binary or multiple systems. However, previous studies typically overlooked the potential influence of magnetic fields during this…
We describe an overall picture of galactic-scale star formation. Recent high-resolution magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of two-fluid dynamics with cooling/heating and thermal conduction have shown that the formation of molecular clouds…
Recent studies of the nearest star-forming clouds of the Galaxy at submillimeter wavelengths with the Herschel Space Observatory have provided us with unprecedented images of the initial and boundary conditions of the star formation…
Most simulations of galaxies and massive giant molecular clouds (GMCs) cannot explicitly resolve the formation (or predict the main-sequence masses) of individual stars. So they must use some prescription for the amount of feedback from an…
These lectures attempt to expose the most important ideas, which have been proposed to explain the formation of stars with particular emphasis on the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars. We first describe the important physical…
It is frequently debated in literature whether a "standard" Initial Mass Function (IMF) - meaning an IMF of the kind usually adopted to explain the chemical evolution in the local Solar Neighbourhood - can account for the observed metal…
We develop a theory for filamentary molecular clouds including the effects of ordered magnetic fields, and external pressure. We first derive a form of the virial equation appropriate for filamentary clouds. By comparing with observational…
The Zeeman effect and dust grain alignment are two major methods for probing magnetic fields (B-fields) in molecular clouds, largely motivated by the study of star formation, as the B-field may regulate gravitational contraction and channel…
In astrochemistry, computational methods play a crucial role in addressing fundamental astronomical questions. Interstellar molecules profoundly influence the chemistry and physics of the interstellar medium (ISM), playing pivotal roles in…
It is suggested that the thermal physics of star-forming clouds may play a more important role than has usually been recognized in the origin of the stellar IMF and in determining a characteristic mass scale. The importance of the thermal…
The functional form of the galaxy-wide stellar initial mass function is of fundamental importance for understanding galaxies. So far this stellar initial mass function has been assumed to be identical to the IMF observed directly in star…
Although the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has only been directly determined in star clusters it has been manifoldly applied on galaxy-wide scales. But taking the clustered nature of star formation into account the galaxy-wide IMF is…
Observed variations in the slope of the initial stellar mass function are shown to be consistent with a model in which the protostellar gas is randomly sampled from hierarchical clouds at a rate proportional to the square root of the local…
Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds…
As most if not all stars are born in stellar clusters the shape of the mass function of the field stars is not only determined by the initial mass function of stars (IMF) but also by the cluster mass function (CMF). In order to quantify…