Related papers: Can we observe the ion-neutral drift velocity in p…
The dynamical role of the magnetic field in the star formation process is tightly linked to the coupling between matter and the field. This coupling is due to the interaction between ions and neutrals in the partially ionized interstellar…
Recent observations have revealed that the ion-neutral drift velocity in star-forming molecular clouds and dense cores is on the order of 100 m s^-1. Theoretical studies have shown that, in ambipolar diffusion, the process responsible for…
The ambipolar diffusion approximation is used to model partially ionised plasma dynamics in a single fluid setting. To correctly apply the commonly used version of ambipolar diffusion, a set of criteria should be satisfied including the…
Magnetic fields play a role in the dynamics of many astrophysical processes, but they are hard to detect. In a partially ionized plasma, a magnetic field works directly on the ionized medium but not on the neutral medium, which gives rise…
Ambipolar diffusion can cause a velocity drift between ions and neutrals. This is one of the non-ideal MHD effects proposed to enable the formation of Keplerian disks with sizes of tens of au. To observationally study ambipolar diffusion in…
We study ambipolar diffusion in strongly magnetised neutron stars, with special focus on the effects of neutrino reaction rates and the impact of a superfluid/superconducting transition in the neutron star core. For axisymmetric magnetic…
Molecular line observations of starless (prestellar) cores combined with a chemical evolution modeling and radiative transfer calculations are a powerful tool to study the earliest stages of star formation. However, conclusions drawn from…
We present 2D Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations of flattened prestellar cores. We argue the importance of observing prestellar cores near the peak of their emission spectra, and we point out observable characteristic features on…
We develop analytic approximations to the density evolution of prestellar cores, based on the results of hydrodynamical simulations. We use these approximations as input for a time-dependent gas-grain chemical code to investigate the…
We present an investigation on effect of the ion-neutral (or ambipolar) diffusion heating rate on thermal phases of a molecular cloud. We use the modeling of ambipolar diffusion with two-fluid smoothed particle hydrodynamics, as discussed…
Sun-like stars form from the contraction of cold and dense interstellar clouds. How the collapse proceeds and what are the main physical processes driving it, however, is still under debate and a final consensus on the timescale of the…
Ambipolar diffusion likely plays a pivotal role in the formation and evolution of dense cores in weakly-ionized molecular clouds. Linear analyses show that the evolutionary times and fragmentation scales are significantly greater than the…
Though flux freezing is a good approximation frequently assumed for molecular clouds, ambipolar diffusion (AD) is inevitable at certain scales. The scale at which AD sets in can be a crucial parameter for turbulence and the star formation…
We analyze the properties of steady and time-dependent C shocks under conditions prevailing in giant molecular clouds. For steady C shocks, we show that ionization equilibrium holds and use numerical integrations to obtain the shock…
We investigate the roles of magnetic fields and ambipolar diffusion during prestellar core formation in turbulent giant molecular clouds (GMCs), using three-dimensional numerical simulations. Our simulations focus on the shocked layer…
The formation of stars is governed by the intricate interplay of nonideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effects, gravity, and turbulence. Computational challenges have hindered a comprehensive 3D exploration of this interplay, posing a…
Although thermal pressure is unimportant dynamically in most molecular gas, the temperature is an important diagnostic of dynamical processes and physical conditions. This is the first of two papers on thermal equilibrium in molecular…
We present a new diagnostic allowing one to measure the anisotropy of ion temperatures and non-thermal velocities as well as Doppler shifts with respect to the ambient magnetic field. This method provides new results, as well as independent…
Interstellar neutral atoms provide a remote diagnostic of plasma in the outer heliosheath and the very local interstellar medium via charge exchange collisions that convert ions into atoms and vice versa. So far, most studies of…
We aim to understand the formation of dense cores by magnetosonic waves in regions where the thermal to magnetic pressure ratio is small. Because of the low-ionisation fraction in molecular clouds, neutral and charged particles are weakly…