Related papers: Compressible MHD Turbulence: Implications for Mole…
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is a crucial component of the current paradigms of star formation, dynamo theory, particle transport, magnetic reconnection and evolution of structure in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies.…
(Abridged) The formation of molecular clouds (MCs) from the diffuse interstellar gas appears to be a necessary step for star formation, as young stars invariably occur within them. However, the mechanisms controlling the formation of MCs…
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…
MHD Turbulence is a critical component of the current paradigms of star formation, particle transport, magnetic reconnection and evolution of the ISM, to name just a few. Progress on this difficult subject is made via numerical simulations…
Turbulence governs the fragmentation of molecular clouds and plays a pivotal role in star formation. The persistence of observed cloud turbulence suggests it does not decay significantly within the turnover timescale, implying a recurrent…
The universality of interstellar turbulence is examined from observed structure functions of 27 giant molecular clouds and Monte Carlo modeling. We show that the structure functions, dv=v0 l^gamma, derived from wide field imaging of CO…
We present an analytical model of the relation between the surface density of gas and star formation rate in galaxies and clouds, as a function of the presence of supersonic turbulence and the associated structure of the interstellar…
The injection and evolution of turbulence in the intergalactic medium is studied by means of mesh-based hydrodynamical simulations, including a subgrid scale (SGS) model for small-scale unresolved turbulence. The simulations show that the…
Properties of candidate stars, forming out of molecular clouds, depend on the ambient conditions of the parent cloud. We present a series of 2D and 3D simulations of fragmentation of molecular clouds in starburst regions as well as clouds…
We study, by means of adaptive mesh refinement hydro- and magnetohydrodynamical simulations that cover a wide range of scales (from kpc to sub-parsec), the dimension of the most dissipative structures and the injection scale of the…
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…
The structure and dynamics of diffuse gas in the Milky Way and other disk galaxies may be strongly influenced by thermal and magnetorotational instabilities (TI and MRI) on scales of about 1-100 pc. We initiate a study of these processes,…
Initial results from simulations of 4-fluid MHD turbulence in molecular clouds are presented. The species included in the simulations are ions, electrons, negatively charged dust grains and neutrals. The results indicate that, on length…
I present an overview of the hierarchy of structures existing in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the possible mechanisms that cause the fragmentation of one level into the next, with the formation of stars as its last step. Within this…
We analyze high resolution simulations of compressible, MHD turbulence with properties resembling conditions in galaxy clusters. The flow is driven to turbulence Mach number $\mathcal{M}_t \sim 1/2$ in an isothermal medium with an initially…
We summarize recent numerical results on the control of the star formation efficiency (SFE), addressing the effects of turbulence and the magnetic field strength. In closed-box numerical simulations, the effect of the turbulent Mach number…
An important aspect of astrophysical MHD turbulence research is developing diagnostics to connect simulations with the observable universe. Turbulent systems are by definition structurally complex in all fluid variables (density, velocity,…
Galactic HI is a gas that is coupled to magnetic field because of its fractional ionization. Many properties of HI are affected by turbulence. Recently, there has been a significant breakthrough on the theory of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)…
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…
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…