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Related papers: The structure of self-gravitating clouds

200 papers

The structure of molecular clouds (MCs) holds important clues on the physical processes that lead to their formation and subsequent evolution. While it is well established that turbulence imprints a self-similar structure to the clouds,…

We present 3-D hydrodynamical models of the evolution of superbubbles powered by stellar winds and supernovae from young coeval massive star clusters within low metallicity ($Z = 0.02$Z$_{\odot}$), clumpy molecular clouds. We explore the…

Molecular clouds are observed to be turbulent, but the origin of this turbulence is not well understood. As a result, there are two different approaches to simulating molecular clouds, one in which the turbulence is allowed to decay after…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Stella S. R. Offner , Richard I. Klein , Christopher F. McKee

We review the properties of turbulent molecular clouds (MCs), focusing on the physical processes that influence star formation (SF). MC formation appears to occur during large-scale compression of the diffuse ISM driven by supernovae,…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 J. Ballesteros-Paredes , R. S. Klessen , M. -M. Mac Low , E. Vazquez-Semadeni

We review how supersonic turbulence can both prevent and promote the collapse of molecular clouds into stars. First we show that decaying turbulence cannot significantly delay collapse under conditions typical of molecular clouds,…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Mordecai-Mark Mac Low , Ralf Klessen , Fabian Heitsch

We examine the effects of self-gravity and magnetic fields on supersonic turbulence in isothermal molecular clouds with high resolution simulations and adaptive mesh refinement. These simulations use large root grids (512^3) to capture…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 David Collins , Alexei G. Kritsuk , Paolo Padoan , Hui Li , Hao Xu , Sergey D. Ustyugov , Michael L. Norman

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-06-08 Yueh-Ning Lee , Patrick Hennebelle

A fraction of the dense cores within a turbulent molecular cloud will eventually collapse to form stars. Identifying the physical criteria for instability and analyzing critical core properties is therefore necessary to star formation…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-16 Sanghyuk Moon , Eve C. Ostriker

In this study we investigate the formation and properties of prestellar and protostellar cores using hydrodynamic, self-gravitating Adaptive Mesh Refinement simulations, comparing the cases where turbulence is continually driven and where…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 S. S. R. Offner , M. R. Krumholz , R. I. Klein , C. F. McKee

Substellar atmospheres are observed to be irregularly variable for which the formation of dust clouds is the most promising candidate explanation. The atmospheric gas is convectively unstable and, last but not least, colliding convective…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Christiane Helling , Rupert Klein , Erwin Sedlmayr

The turbulent motion within molecular clouds is a key factor controlling star formation. Turbulence supports molecular cloud cores from evolving to gravitational collapse and hence sets a lower bound on the size of molecular cloud cores in…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-23 Yang Gao , Haitao Xu , Chung K. Law

We study particle dynamics in local two-dimensional simulations of self-gravitating accretion discs with a simple cooling law. It is well known that the structure which arises in the gaseous component of the disc due to a gravitational…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 P. G. Gibbons , W. K. M. Rice , G. R. Mamatsashvili

The interaction of turbulence, magnetic fields, self-gravity, and stellar feedback within molecular clouds is crucial for understanding star formation. We study the effects of self-gravity and outflow feedback on the properties of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-04-25 Yue Hu , Christoph Federrath , Siyao Xu , Sajay Sunny Mathew

We formulate the problem of the formation and collapse of nonaxisymmetric protostellar cores in weakly ionized, self-gravitating, magnetic molecular clouds. In our formulation, molecular clouds are approximated as isothermal, thin (but with…

Astrophysics · Physics 2011-02-11 Glenn E. Ciolek , Shantanu Basu

We study the dynamical state of cores by using a simple analytical model, a sample of observational massive cores, and numerical simulations of collapsing massive cores. From the model, we find that, if cores are formed from turbulent…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-06-27 Javier Ballesteros-Paredes , Enrique Vázquez-Semadeni , Aina Palau , Ralf S. Klessen

We analyze the structure of 15 protocluster forming regions in the Milky Way using their $1.3$ mm continuum emission maps from the ALMA-IMF large program. The analysis of the clouds structure is performed using the delta-variance spectrum…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-07-04 Sami Dib

We compare velocity structure in the Polaris Flare molecular cloud at scales ranging from 0.015 pc to 20 pc to simulations of supersonic hydrodynamic and MHD turbulence computed with the ZEUS MHD code. We use several different statistical…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Volker Ossenkopf , Mordecai-Mark Mac Low

We present a direct numerical and analytical study of driven supersonic MHD turbulence that is believed to govern the dynamics of star-forming molecular clouds. We describe statistical properties of the turbulence by measuring the velocity…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Stanislav Boldyrev , Aake Nordlund , Paolo Padoan

In order to understand the origin of observed molecular cloud properties, it is critical to understand how clouds interact with their environments during their formation, growth, and collapse. It has been suggested that accretion-driven…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-12-21 Juan C. Ibáñez-Mejía , Mordecai-Mark Mac Low , Ralf S. Klessen , Christian Baczynski

The structure of molecular clouds can be characterized with the probability distribution function (PDF) of the mass surface density. In particular, the properties of the distribution can reveal the nature of the turbulence and star…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-22 Rachel L. Ward , James Wadsley , Alison Sills