Related papers: Isothermal Fragmentation: Is there a low-mass cut-…
When a self-gravitating disc is subject to irradiation, its propensity to fragmentation will be affected. The strength of self-gravitating disc stresses is expected to dictate disc fragmentation: as the strength of these torques typically…
The turnover in the stellar initial mass function (IMF) at low mass suggests the presence of two independent mass functions that combine in different ways above and below a characteristic mass given by the thermal Jeans mass in the cloud.…
The current status of both the observational evidence and the theory of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is reviewed, with particular attention to the two basic, apparently universal features shown by all observations of nearby…
A stochastic model of fragmentation of molecular clouds has been developed for studying the resulting Initial Mass Function (IMF) where the number of fragments, inter-occurrence time of fragmentation, masses and velocities of the fragments…
We investigate the early formation of bound objects with masses comparable to the cosmological Jeans mass (10^5 solar masses). We follow the growth of isolated spherically symmetric density peaks starting from the linear perturbative…
In this paper we study the process of the subsequent (runaway) fragmentation of the rotating isothermal Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) complex. Our own developed Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) gas-dynamical model successfully reproduce…
If star formation proceeds by thermal fragmentation and the subsequent gravitational collapse of the individual fragments, how is it possible to form fragments massive enough for O and B stars in a typical star-forming molecular cloud where…
We study the gravitational fragmentation of cold accretion streams flowing into a typical first galaxy. We use a one-zone hydrodynamical model to examine the thermal evolution of the gas entering a 10^8 M_sun DM halo at z=10. The goal is to…
Hydrodynamical calculations in three space dimensions of the collapse of an isothermal, rotating 1 M\sol protostellar cloud are presented. The initial density stratification is a power law with density $\rho \propto r^{-p}$, with $p=1$. The…
Motivated by recent observational searches of sub-structure in starless molecular cloud cores, we investigate the evolution of density perturbations on scales smaller than the Jeans length embedded in contracting isothermal clouds, adopting…
The morphology and kinematics of molecular clouds (MCs) are best explained as the consequence of super--sonic turbulence. Super--sonic turbulence fragments MCs into dense sheets, filaments and cores and large low density ``voids'', via the…
Three-dimensional fractal models on grids of 200**3 pixels are generated from the inverse Fourier transform of noise with a power law cutoff, exponentiated to give a log normal distribution of density. The fractals are clipped at various…
The formation of the first stars out of metal-free gas appears to result in stars at least an order of magnitude more massive than in the present-day case. We here consider what controls the transition from a primordial to a modern initial…
The stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) seems to be close to universal in the local star-forming regions. However, this quantity of a newborn stellar population responds differently at gas metallicities $Z \sim$ $Z_\odot$ than $Z$ = 0. A…
The dense, cold regions where high-mass stars form are poorly characterised, yet they represent an ideal opportunity to learn more about the initial conditions of high-mass star formation (HMSF), since high-mass starless cores (HMSCs) lack…
We further develop the model of molecular cloud fragmentation introduced in Field, Blackman and Keto (2007; FBK). We show that external pressure acting on fragments establishes a scale-dependent critical mass. Fragments with masses less…
We conduct numerical experiments in which we systematically vary the initial density over four orders of magnitude and the turbulent velocity over a factor ten. In a companion paper, we investigate the dependence of this distribution on the…
We study star cluster formation in a low-metallicity environment using three dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. Starting from a turbulent cloud core, we follow the formation and growth of protostellar systems with different metallicities…
We investigate the condition for the formation of low-mass second-generation stars in the early universe. It has been proposed that gas cooling by dust thermal emission can trigger fragmentation of a low-metallicity star-forming gas cloud.…
Recent works have proposed the idea of a tidal screening scenario, in which tidal forces determine the mass that a protostar can accrete to explain the IMF. In this scenario, gravitationally unstable fragments will compete for the gas…