Related papers: Isothermal Fragmentation: Is there a low-mass cut-…
Understanding the evolution of self-gravitating, isothermal, magnetized gas is crucial for star formation, as these physical processes have been postulated to set the initial mass function (IMF). We present a suite of isothermal…
In the solar neighborhood, the Initial Mass Function (IMF) follows is canonically described by the Salpeter power-law slope for the high-mass range. The stellar IMF may directly result from a Core Mass Function (CMF) through accretion,…
I present an overview of the hierarchy of structures existing in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the possible mechanisms that cause the fragmentation of one level into the next, with the formation of stars as its last step. Within this…
Thermal and chemical evolution of primordial gas clouds irradiated with far-ultraviolet (FUV; < 13.6 eV) radiation is investigated. In clouds irradiated by intense FUV radiation, sufficient hydrogen molecules to be important for cooling are…
Dust is the usual minor component of the interstellar medium. Its dynamic role in the contraction of the diffuse gas into molecular clouds is commonly assumed to be negligible because of the small mass fraction, $f \simeq 0.01$. However, as…
We report results from numerical simulations of star formation in the early universe that focus on gas at very high densities and very low metallicities. We argue that the gas in the central regions of protogalactic halos will fragment as…
In a low-metallicity gas, rapid cooling by dust thermal emission is considered to induce cloud fragmentation and play a vital role in the formation of low-mass stars (<~ 1 M_sun) in metal-poor environments. We investigate how the growth of…
We present observations of the 1.3 mm continuum emission toward hub-N and hub-S of the infrared dark cloud G14.225-0.506 carried out with the Submillimeter Array, together with observations of the dust emission at 870 and 350 microns…
A brief review is given of the basic observed features of the stellar IMF, and also of some of the theoretical ideas and simulations that may help to explain these features. The characteristic stellar mass of order one solar mass may derive…
Context. Stellar feedback regulates star formation and shapes the interstellar medium, yet its role during the collapse of molecular clouds remains uncertain over a wide range of initial conditions. Aims. We explore how stellar winds and…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
A self-similar formalism for the study of the gravitational collapse of molecular gas provides an important theoretical framework from which to explore the dynamics of star formation. Motivated by the presence of elongated and filamentary…
This is the first paper about the fragmentation and mass outflow in the molecular cloud by using three-dimensional MHD nested-grid simulations. The binary star formation process is studied paying particular attention to the fragmentation of…
Ongoing surveys are in the process of measuring the chemical abundances in large numbers of stars, with the ultimate goal of reconstructing the formation history of the Milky Way using abundances as tracers. However, interpretation of these…
The Padoan and Nordlund model of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is derived from low order statistics of supersonic turbulence, neglecting gravity (e.g. gravitational fragmentation, accretion and merging). In this work the…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. This process is investigated, using numerical models of self-gravitating molecular cloud…
We derive the mass function of condensations (clumps) which were formed through a turbulent cascade over a range of spatial scales $L\le20$ pc during early, predominantly turbulent evolution of a molecular cloud. The approach rests upon the…
We suggest that molecular cloud (MC) turbulence is a consequence of the very process of MC formation by collisions of larger-scale flows in the diffuse atomic gas, which generate turbulence in the accumulated gas through bending- mode…
Filamentary structures are common in molecular clouds. Explaining how they fragment to dense cores is a missing step in understanding their role in star formation. We perform a case study of whether low-mass filaments are close-to…
Fragmentation of filaments into dense cores is thought to be an important step in forming stars. The bar-mode instability of spherically collapsing cores found in previous linear analysis invokes a possibility of re-fragmentation of the…