Related papers: Starless Cores
The past two decades have seen extensive surveys of the far-infrared to submillimeter continuum emission in the plane of our Galaxy. We line out prospects for the coming decade for corresponding molecular and atomic line surveys which are…
We simulate the formation of a low metallicity (0.01 Zsun) stellar cluster in a dwarf galaxy at redshift z~14. Beginning with cosmological initial conditions, the simulation utilizes adaptive mesh refinement and sink particles to follow the…
We carry out three-dimensional MHD simulations of star formation in turbulent, magnetized clouds, including ambipolar diffusion and feedback from protostellar outflows. The calculations focus on relatively diffuse clouds threaded by a…
Condensation of circumstellar dust begins with formation of molecular clusters close to the stellar photosphere. These clusters are predicted to act as condensation cores at lower temperatures and allow efficient dust formation farther away…
Molecular deuteration is commonly seen in starless cores and is expected to occur on a timescale comparable to that of the core contraction. Thus, the deuteration serves as a chemical clock, allowing us to investigate dynamical theories of…
In star forming regions, we can observe different evolutionary stages of various objects and phenomena such as molecular clouds, protostellar jets and outflows, circumstellar disks, and protostars. However, it is difficult to directly…
Stars form through the gravitational collapse of molecular cloud cores. Before collapsing, the cores are supported by thermal pressure and turbulent motions. A question of critical importance for the understanding of star formation is how…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Current observational results in our galaxy provide a complex physical and chemical…
We present the results of ALMA observations of dust continuum emission and molecular rotational lines toward a dense core, MC27 (aka L1521F), which is considered to be very close to the first core phase. We revealed the spatial/velocity…
AIMS: To study the structure of nearby (< 500 pc) dense starless and star-forming cores with the particular goal to identify and understand evolutionary trends in core properties, and to explore the nature of Very Low Luminosity Objects (<…
Most stars form in multiple systems, with profound implications in numerous astronomical phenomena intrinsically linked to multiplicity. However, our knowledge about the process on how multiple stellar systems form is incomplete and biased…
Observations of dark cloud cores have been carried out in the mid-infrared using ISOCAM and in the far-infrared using ISOPHOT, both aboard the Infrared Space Observatory. The cores are in most cases detected in emission at 200 and 170…
Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds…
Dense, small molecular cloud cores have been identified as the direct progenitors of stars. One of the best studied examples is Barnard 68 which is considered a prototype stable, spherical gas core, confined by a diffuse high-pressure…
The relations between star formation and properties of molecular clouds are studied based on a sample of star forming regions in the Galactic Plane. Sources were selected by having radio recombination lines to provide identification of…
We investigate the thermal and dynamical evolution of primordial gas clouds in the universe after decoupling. Comparing the time-scale of dynamical evolution with that of fragmentation, we can estimate the typical fragmentation scale. We…
We investigate star formation at very early evolutionary phases in five massive clouds in the inner 500 pc of the Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone. Using interferometer observations of H$_2$O masers and ultra-compact H II regions, we find…
It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely independent of any particular model of…
We investigate the chemical and observational implications of repetitive transient dense core formation in molecular clouds. We allow a transient density fluctuation to form and disperse over a period of 1 Myr, tracing its chemical…
Similar to their low-mass counterparts, massive stars likely form via the collapse of pre-stellar molecular cores. Recent observations suggest that most massive cores are subvirial (i.e., not supported by turbulence) and therefore are…