Related papers: Star Formation in Turbulent Molecular Clouds
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
We derive an analytic prediction for the star formation rate in environments ranging from normal galactic disks to starbursts and ULIRGs in terms of the observables of those systems. Our calculation is based on three premises: (1) star…
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
We study the formation and early evolution of star clusters that have a wide range of masses and background cloud mass surface densities, $\Sigma_{\rm cloud}$, which help set the initial sizes, densities, and velocity dispersions of the…
The kinetic energy of supersonic turbulence within interstellar clouds is subject to cooling by dissipation in shocks and subsequent line radiation. The clouds are therefore susceptible to a condensation process controlled by the specific…
What is the nature of a star forming clump? Observations reveal these to be chaotic environments being modified and influenced by many physical processes. However, numerical simulations often define these initial star forming clumps to be…
Using numerical simulations of the formation and evolution of stellar clusters within molecular clouds, we show that the stars in clusters formed within collapsing molecular cloud clumps exhibit a constant velocity dispersion regardless of…
Stars generally form faster than the ambipolar diffusion time, suggesting that several processes short circuit the delay and promote a rapid collapse. These processes are considered here, including turbulence compression in the outer parts…
Star formation is enhanced in spiral arms because of a combination of orbit crowding, cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities. The characteristic mass for the instability is 10^7 Msun in gas and 10^5 Msun in stars, and the…
Stars do not generally form in isolation. Instead, they form in clusters, and in these clustered environments newborn stars can have profound effects on one another and on their parent gas clouds. Feedback from clustered stars is almost…
We discuss the mechanism of cluster formation in hierarchically collapsing molecular clouds. Recent evidence, both observational and numerical, suggests that molecular clouds (MCs) may be undergoing global, hierarchical gravitational…
Massive stars blow powerful winds and eventually explode as supernovae. By doing so, they inject energy and momentum in the circumstellar medium, which is pushed away from the star and piles up to form a dense and expanding shell of gas.…
The isothermal gravitational collapse and fragmentation of a molecular cloud region and the subsequent formation of a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The clump mass spectrum which forms during the fragmentation phase can…
Stars are forming in our galaxy at a rate of between 1 and 4 solar masses of stars per year. In contrast to elliptical galaxies, which are largely devoid of star formation, star formation is still going on in spiral galaxies because of…
The isothermal gravitational collapse and fragmentation of a region within a molecular cloud and the subsequent formation of a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The clump mass spectrum which forms during the fragmentation…
Molecular clouds are a fundamental ingredient of galaxies: they are the channels that transform the diffuse gas into stars. The detailed process of how they do it is not completely understood. We review the current knowledge of molecular…
Star formation occurs in hierarchical patterns in both space and time. Galaxies form large regions on the scale of the interstellar Jeans length and these large regions apparently fragment into giant molecular clouds and cloud cores in a…
We review recent work that investigates the formation of stellar clusters, ranging in scale from globular clusters through open clusters to the small scale aggregates of stars observed in T associations. In all cases, recent advances in…
Stars are often observed to form in clusters. It is therefore important to understand how such a region of concentrated mass is assembled out of the diffuse medium and its properties eventually prescribe the important physical mechanisms…