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Nine lectures reviewing the astrophysics of dust in interstellar clouds. Topics include: (1) Summary of observational evidence concerning interstellar dust: broadband extinction, scattering of starlight, polarization of starlight,…
We present an analysis of the large-scale molecular cloud structure and of the stability of clumpy structures in nearby molecular clouds. In our recent work, we identified a structural transition in molecular clouds by studying the…
We present semi-analytic dynamical models for giant molecular clouds evolving under the influence of HII regions launched by newborn star clusters. In contrast to previous work, we neither assume that clouds are in virial or energetic…
We provide a detailed comparison between the ``turbulent support'' (TS) and ``global hierarchical collapse'' (GHC) models for molecular clouds and star formation, their respective interpretations of the observational data, the features they…
Stars form within molecular clouds, so characterizing the physical states of molecular clouds is key in understanding the process of star formation. Cloud structure and stability is frequently assessed using metrics including the virial…
Understanding the survival, growth and dynamics of cold gas is fundamental to galaxy formation. While there has been a plethora of work on `wind tunnel' simulations that study such cold gas in winds, the infall of this gas under gravity is…
The equilibrium state of a turbulent clumpy gas disk is analytically investigated. The disk consists of distinct self-gravitating clouds. Gravitational cloud-cloud interactions transfer energy over spatial scales and produce a viscosity,…
Localized turbulence is common in geophysical flows, where the roles of rotation and stratification are paramount. In this study, we investigate the evolution of a stratified turbulent cloud under rotation. Recognizing that a turbulent…
The fragmentation of gas to form stars in molecular clouds is intrinsically linked to the turbulence within them. These internal motions are set at the birth of the cloud and may vary with galactic environment and as the cloud evolves. In…
One of the main questions in planet formation theory is how to cross the metre-scale barrier. In this two-part series, we assess the merits of vortex-based theories by investigating the effect of backreacting dust on vortices. Specifically,…
We study how the interaction between the streaming instability and intrinsic gas-phase turbulence affects planetesimal formation via gravitational collapse in protoplanetary disks. Turbulence impedes the formation of particle clumps by…
In this paper we continue to investigate the energy conservation equation obtained in our previous work. We set ourselves three new goals. The first one is to rewrite the main equations in terms of density profile in order to give more…
Sheet-like clouds are common in turbulent gas and perhaps form via collisions between turbulent gas flows. Having examined the evolution of an isothermal shocked slab in an earlier contribution, in this work we follow the evolution of a…
We investigate the phenomenon of turbulent thermal diffusion of inertial solid particles in laboratory experiments with convective turbulence forced by one or two oscillating grids in the air. Turbulent thermal diffusion causes a…
The nature of turbulence in molecular clouds is one of the key parameters that control star formation efficiency: compressive motions, as opposed to solenoidal motions, can trigger the collapse of cores, or mark the expansion of Hii…
A model is proposed for determining the distances to falling interstellar clouds in the galactic halo by measuring the cloud velocity and column density and assuming a model for the vertical density distribution of the Galactic interstellar…
We argue that massive stars are the dominant sources of energy for the turbulent motions within giant molecular clouds, and that the primary agent of feedback is the expansion of H II regions within the cloud volume. This conclusion is…
The turbulent viscosity of convection is believed to circularize the orbits of close binary stars. When the tidal period is shorter than the turnover time of the largest eddies, turbulent viscosity is believed to be suppressed. The degree…
The influence of rotation and magnetic fields on the physical properties of isothermal gas clouds is discussed. The presence of rotation and/or magnetic fields results in an increase of the critical cloud mass with respect to gravitational…
The origin of non-thermal motions in massive star forming regions can be ascribed to turbulence acting against the gravitational collapse, or to the self-gravity itself driving the rapid global collapse. The dependence between velocity…