Related papers: Turbulent Action at a Distance due to Stellar Feed…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…
We present a numerical study of the evolution of molecular clouds, from their formation by converging flows in the warm ISM, to their destruction by the ionizing feedback of the massive stars they form. We improve with respect to our…
We introduce a new model for the structure and evolution of the gas in galactic discs. In the model the gas is in vertical pressure and energy balance. Star formation feedback injects energy and momentum, and non-axisymmetric torques…
MHD turbulence plays a central role in the physics of star-forming molecular clouds and the interstellar medium. I here show that MHD turbulence in molecular clouds must be driven to account for the observed supersonic motions in the…
Radiation feedback from stellar clusters is expected to play a key role in setting the rate and efficiency of star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs). To investigate how radiation forces influence realistic turbulent systems, we…
Feedback from supernovae is often invoked as an important process in limiting star formation, removing gas from galaxies and hence as a determining process in galaxy formation. Here we report on numerical simulations investigating the…
Molecular clouds are the principle stellar nurseries of our universe, keeping them in the focus of both observational and theoretical studies. From observations, some of the key properties of molecular clouds are well known but many…
Star formation is inefficient. Only a few percent of the available gas in molecular clouds forms stars, leading to the observed low star formation rate (SFR). The same holds when averaged over many molecular clouds, such that the SFR of…
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…
Supersonic turbulence plays a pivotal role during the formation of molecular clouds and stars in galaxies. However, little is known about how the fraction of compressive and solenoidal modes in the velocity field evolves over time and how…
Simulations from the scales of isolated galaxies to clouds have been instrumental in informing us about molecular cloud formation and evolution. Simulations are able to investigate the roles of gravity, feedback, turbulence, heating and…
The observational record of turbulence within the molecular gas phase of the interstellar medium is summarized. We briefly review the analysis methods used to recover the velocity structure function from spectroscopic imaging and the…
Stellar winds contain enough energy to easily disrupt the parent cloud surrounding a nascent star cluster, and for this reason have been considered candidates for regulating star formation. However, direct observations suggest most wind…
How does turbulence contribute to the formation and structure of the dense interstellar medium (ISM)? Molecular clouds are dense, high-pressure objects. It is usually argued that gravitational confinement causes the high pressures, and that…
We discuss constraints on the rates of stirring and dissipation of MHD turbulence in molecular clouds. Recent MHD simulations suggest that turbulence in clouds decays rapidly, thus providing a significant source of energy input,…
Star clusters larger than $\sim 10^{3}$ $M_\odot$ contain multiple hot stars that launch fast stellar winds. The integrated kinetic energy carried by these winds is comparable to that delivered by supernova explosions, suggesting that at…
The effects of wind-driven star formation feedback on the spatio-temporal organization of stars and gas in galaxies is studied using two-dimensional intermediate-representational quasi-hydrodynamical simulations. The model retains only a…
To study how supernova feedback structures the turbulent interstellar medium, we construct 3D models of vertically stratified gas stirred by discrete supernova explosions, including vertical gravitational field and parametrized heating and…
Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support,…
The nature and origin of turbulence and magnetic fields in the intergalactic space are important problems that are yet to be understood. We propose a scenario in which turbulent flow motions are induced via the cascade of the vorticity…