Related papers: Gravity, Turbulence, and Star Formation
Star formation is one of the least understood processes in cosmic evolution. It is difficult to formulate a general theory for star formation in part because of the wide range of physical processes involved. The interstellar gas out of…
We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self…
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
The spatial range for feedback from star formation varies from molecular cloud disruption on parsec scales to supershells and disk blowout on kiloparsec scales. The relative amounts of energy and momentum given to these scales is important…
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…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. Molecular cloud regions without turbulent driving sources, or where turbulence is driven…
We present numerical simulations of the passage of clumpy gas through a galactic spiral shock and the subsequent formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs). The spiral shock forms dense clouds while dissipating kinetic energy, producing…
We review current understanding of star formation, outlining an overall theoretical framework and the observations that motivate it. A conception of star formation has emerged in which turbulence plays a dual role, both creating…
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…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…
Intermediate and massive stars drive fast and powerful isotropic winds that interact with the winds of nearby stars in star clusters and the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). Wind-ISM collisions generate astrospheres around these stars…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
We examine the idea that diffuse and giant molecular clouds and their substructure form as density fluctuations induced by large scale interstellar turbulence. We do this by investigating the topology of various fields in realistic…
Stars 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 and most massive…
Self-gravity and stellar feedback are capable of driving turbulence and transporting mass and angular momentum in disk galaxies, but the balance between them is not well understood. In the previous paper in this series, we showed that…
Understanding the physics of how stars form is a highly-prioritized goal of modern Astrophysics, in part because star formation is linked to both galactic dynamics on large scales and to the formation of planets on small scales. It is…
MHD turbulence plays a central role in the physics of star-forming molecular clouds and the interstellar medium. I here show that MHD turbulence in molecular clouds must be driven to account for the observed supersonic motions in the…
Flows in natural bodies of fluid often become turbulent, with eddy-like motions dominated by inertial-vortex forces. Buoyancy, Coriolis, viscous, self-gravitational, electromagnetic, and other force constraints produce a complex phase space…
In the multi-scale view of the star formation process the material flows from large molecular clouds down to clumps and cores. In this paradigm it is still unclear if it is gravity or turbulence that drives the observed supersonic…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. This process is investigated, using numerical models of self-gravitating molecular cloud…