Related papers: Star Formation in Turbulent Molecular Clouds
The currently available empirical evidence on the star formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters, mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, strongly…
We demonstrate that the high pressure of the hot intracluster medium (ICM) can trigger the collapse of molecular clouds in a spiral galaxy, leading to a burst of star formation in the clouds. Our hydrodynamical simulations show that the…
Observations and theory both suggest that star clusters form sub-virial (cool) with highly sub-structured distributions. We perform a large ensemble of N-body simulations of moderate-sized (N=1000) cool, fractal clusters to investigate…
How stars are born from clouds of gas is a rich physics problem whose solution will inform our understanding of not just stars but also planets, galaxies, and the universe itself. Star formation is stupendously inefficient. Take the Milky…
Observations that resolve nearby galaxies into individual regions across multiple phases of the gas-star formation-feedback ``matter cycle'' have provided a sharp new view of molecular clouds, star formation efficiencies, timescales for…
Star complexes are the largest globular regions of star formation in galaxies. If there is a spiral density wave, nuclear ring, tidal arm, or other well-defined stellar structure, then gravitational instabilities in the gaseous component…
This chapter reviews the nature of turbulence in the Galactic interstellar medium (ISM) and its connections to the star formation (SF) process. The ISM is turbulent, magnetized, self-gravitating, and is subject to heating and cooling…
Improving our understanding of the earliest stages of star formation is crucial to gain insight into the origin of stellar masses, multiple systems, and protoplanetary disks. We discuss recent advances made in this area thanks to detailed…
Star formation is a multi-scale, multi-physics problem ranging from the size scale of molecular clouds ($\sim$10s pc) down to the size scales of dense prestellar cores ($\sim$0.1 pc) that are the birth sites of stars. Several physical…
We argue that rich star clusters take at least several local dynamical times to form, and so are quasi-equilibrium structures during their assembly. Observations supporting this conclusion include morphologies of star-forming clumps,…
Star cluster formation and assembly occurs inside filamentary and turbulent molecular clouds, which imprints both spatial and kinematic substructure on the young cluster. In this paper, we quantify the amount and evolution of this…
Context. Traditionally, supersonic turbulence is considered to be one of the most likely mechanisms to slow down the gravitational collapse in dense clumps, thereby enabling the formation of massive stars. However, several recent studies…
The study of the internal structure of star clusters provides important clues concerning their formation mechanism and dynamical evolution. There are both observational and numerical evidences indicating that open clusters evolve from an…
We investigate the formation of star clusters in an unbound GMC, where the supporting kinetic energy is twice as large as the cloud's self-gravity. This cloud manages to form a series of star clusters and disperse, all within roughly 2…
The evolution of star clusters is determined by several internal and external processes. Here we focus on two dominant internal effects, namely energy exchange between stars through close encounters (two-body relaxation) and mass-loss of…
Observations of the dust and gas around embedded stellar clusters reveal some of the processes involved in their formation and evolution. Large scale mass infall with rates dM/dt=4e-4 solar masses/year is found to be disrupted on small…
We present numerical simulations of the passage of clumpy gas through a galactic spiral shock, the subsequent formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and the triggering of star formation. The spiral shock forms dense clouds while…
Dense pockets of cold, molecular gas precede the formation of stars. During their infancy and later phases of evolution, stars inject considerable energy into the interstellar medium by driving shocks either due to ionising radiation or…
To understand the formation of stars from clouds of molecular gas, one essentially needs to know two things: What gas collapses, and how long it takes to do so. We address these questions by embedding pseudo-Lagrangian tracer particles in…
The isothermal dynamical evolution of a clumpy and turbulent molecular cloud region and its fragmentation into a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The effect of different initial density and velocity distributions, generated…