Related papers: Star Formation and the Initial Mass Function
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) is a complex, multi-phase system, where the history of the stars occurs. The processes of birth and death of stars are strongly coupled to the dynamics of the ISM. The observed chaotic and diffusive motions of…
A popular theory of star formation is gravito-turbulent fragmentation, in which self-gravitating structures are created by turbulence-driven density fluctuations. Simple theories of isothermal fragmentation successfully reproduce the core…
The role of supersonic turbulence in structuring the interstellar medium (ISM) remains an unsettled question. Here, this problem is investigated using a newexact law of compressible isothermal hydrodynamic turbulence, which involves…
The primordial clouds in the mini-halos hatch the first generation stars of the universe, which play a crucial role in cosmic evolution. In this paper, we investigate how the turbulence impacts the structure of primordial star-forming…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
An essential component of galaxy formation theory is the stellar initial mass function (IMF), that describes the parent distribution of stellar mass in star forming regions. We present observational evidence in a sample of early-type…
The Schmidt-Kennicutt relation links the surface densities of gas to the star formation rate in galaxies. The physical origin of this relation, and in particular its break, i.e. the transition between an inefficient regime at low gas…
[abridged] We report a series of simulations of the formation of a star cluster similar to the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), including both radiative transfer and protostellar outflows, and starting from both smooth and self-consistently…
Stars form in supersonic turbulent molecular clouds that are self-gravitating. We present an analytic determination of the star formation rate (SFR) in a gravoturbulent medium based on the density probability distribution function of…
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…
We investigate the possibility of generating and studying turbulence in plasma by means of high-energy density laser-driven experiments. Our focus is to create supersonic, self-magnetized turbulence with characteristics that resemble those…
We present a detailed computational study of the assembly of protostellar disks and massive stars in molecular clouds with supersonic turbulence. We follow the evolution of large scale filamentary structures in a cluster-forming clump down…
Turbulence plays a critical role in regulating star formation in molecular clouds and is also observed in simulations of primordial halos that host Population III (Pop III) stars. The relative velocity between baryons and dark matter at the…
I review recent results derived from numerical simulations of the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM), in particular concerning the nature and formation of turbulent clouds, methods for comparing the structure in simulations and…
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…
Observations have not yielded convincing results concerning the form of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) or its variations in space and time, so it is proposed that theoretical models may provide useful guidance. Several classes of…
Turbulence is ubiquitous in the insterstellar medium and plays a major role in several processes such as the formation of dense structures and stars, the stability of molecular clouds, the amplification of magnetic fields, and the…
Here we present a simple, but nevertheless, instructive model for the star formation efficiency in turbulent molecular clouds. The model is based on the assumption of log-normal density distribution which reflects the turbulent nature of…
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…
We use a suite of 3D simulations of star-forming molecular clouds, with and without stellar feedback, magnetic fields, and driven turbulence, to study the compression and expansion rates of the gas as functions of density. We show that,…