Related papers: Structure and Dynamics of Magnetized Interstellar …
We present numerical studies of compressible, decaying turbulence, with and without magnetic fields, with initial rms Alfven and Mach numbers ranging up to five, and apply the results to the question of the support of star-forming…
Supersonic random motions are observed in dark clouds and are traditionally interpreted as Alfven waves, but the possibility that these motions are super-Alfvenic has not been ruled out. In this work we report the results of numerical…
The magnetic field strength in molecular clouds is a fundamental quantity for theories of star formation. It is estimated by Zeeman splitting measurements in a few dense molecular cores, but its volume--averaged value within large molecular…
We (Li et al. 2009; Paper-I) compared the magnetic field directions inferred from polarimetry data obtained from 100-pc scale inter-cloud media (ICM) and from sub-pc scale molecular cloud cores. The highly correlated result led us to…
Supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds is a dominant agent that strongly affects the clouds' evolution and star formation activity. Turbulence may be initiated and maintained by a number of processes, acting at a wide range of physical…
The Zeeman effect and dust grain alignment are two major methods for probing magnetic fields (B-fields) in molecular clouds, largely motivated by the study of star formation, as the B-field may regulate gravitational contraction and channel…
Molecular clouds have broad linewidths suggesting turbulent supersonic motions in the clouds. These motions are usually invoked to explain why molecular clouds take much longer than a free-fall time to form stars. It has classically been…
Observations of magnetic field strengths imply that molecular cloud fragments are individually close to being in a magnetically critical state, even though both magnetic field and column density measurements range over two orders 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…
(Abridged) We present a series of decaying turbulence simulations that represent a cluster-forming clump within a molecular cloud, investigating the role of magnetic fields on the formation of potential star-forming cores. We present an…
Modeling the structure of molecular clouds depends on good methods to statistically compare simulations with observations in order to constrain the models. Here we characterize a suite of hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical (MHD)…
We present a comprehensive study of MHD waves and instabilities in a weakly ionised system, e.g., an interstellar molecular cloud. We determine all the critical wavelengths of perturbations across which the sustainable wave modes can change…
Under the basic assumption that the observed turbulent motions in molecular clouds are Alfvenic waves or turbulence, we emphasize that the Doppler broadening of molecular line profiles directly measures the velocity amplitudes of the waves…
We revisit the problem of the star formation timescale and the ages of molecular clouds. The apparent overabundance of star-forming molecular clouds over clouds without active star formation has been thought to indicate that molecular…
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,…
How does turbulence contribute to the formation and structure of the dense interstellar medium (ISM)? Molecular clouds are dense, high-pressure objects. It is usually argued that gravitational confinement causes the high pressures, and that…
The magnetic field of molecular clouds (MCs) plays an important role in the process of star formation: it determins the statistical properties of supersonic turbulence that controls the fragmentation of MCs, controls the angular momentum…
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…
We review recent advances in the analytical and numerical modeling of the star formation rate in molecular clouds and discuss the available observational constraints. We focus on molecular clouds as the fundamental star formation sites,…
In order to investigate the origin of the interstellar turbulence, detailed observations in the CO J=1--0 and 3--2 lines have been carried out in an interacting region of a molecular cloud with an HII region. As a result, several 1,000 to…