Related papers: Molecular Clouds (a review)
Observations that resolve nearby galaxies into individual regions across multiple phases of the gas-star formation-feedback ``matter cycle'' have provided a sharp new view of molecular clouds, star formation efficiencies, timescales for…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
Shells are fine stellar structures identified by their arc-like shapes present around a galaxy and currently thought to be vestiges of galaxy interactions and/or mergers. The study of their number, geometry, stellar populations and gas…
Newborn stars form within the localized, high density regions of molecular clouds. The sequence and rate at which stars form in dense clumps and the dependence on local and global environments are key factors in developing descriptions of…
The dense molecular cloud cores that form stars, like other self-gravitating objects, undergo bulk oscillations. Just at the point of gravitational instability, their fundamental oscillation mode has zero frequency. We study, using…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
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…
The line of sight through the Galactic Plane between longitudes l = 37.83 degr and l = 42.50 degr allows for the separation of Galactic Ring Survey molecular clouds into those that fall within the spiral arms and those located in the…
Molecular clouds, the birthplaces of stars in galaxies, form dynamically from the diffuse atomic gas of the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is also threaded by magnetic fields which have a large impact on its dynamics. In particular,…
Observations of both star-forming regions and young, gas-free stellar associations indicate that most nearby molecular clouds form stars only over a short time span before dispersal; large-scale flows in the diffuse interstellar medium have…
We investigate the formation of star clusters in an unbound GMC, where the supporting kinetic energy is twice as large as the cloud's self-gravity. This cloud manages to form a series of star clusters and disperse, all within roughly 2…
According to the standard cold dark matter (CDM) cosmology, the structure of dark halos including those of galaxy clusters reflects their mass accretion history. Older clusters tend to be more concentrated than younger clusters. Their…
We present the results of a numerical simulation in which star formation proceeds from an initially unbound molecular cloud core. The turbulent motions, which dominate the dynamics, dissipate in shocks leaving a quiescent region which…
Molecular hydrogen has an important role in the early stages of star formation as well as in the production of many other molecules that have been detected in the interstellar medium. In this review we show that it is now possible to study…
Observations reveal concentrations of molecular line emission on the sky, called ``clumps,'' in dense, star-forming molecular clouds. These clumps are believed to be the eventual sites of star formation. We study the three-dimensional…
In this paper, we review some of the properties of dense molecular cloud cores. The results presented here rely on three-dimensional numerical simulations of isothermal, magnetized, turbulent, and self-gravitating molecular clouds (MCs) in…
In order to understand how molecular clouds form in the Galactic interstellar medium, we would like to be able to map the structure and kinematics of the gas flows responsible for forming them. However, doing so is observationally…
We suggest that molecular clouds can be formed on short time scales by compressions from large scale streams in the interstellar medium (ISM). In particular, we argue that the Taurus-Auriga complex, with filaments of 10-20 pc $\times$ 2-5…
We show that massive stars and stellar clusters are formed simultaneously, the global evolution of the forming cluster is what allows the central stars to become massive. We predict that massive star forming clumps, such as those observed…
With the HOPS, MALT90 and HiGAL Galactic plane surveys we are mapping a significant fraction of the dense, star-forming, molecular gas in the Galaxy. I present results from two projects based on this combined dataset, namely, (i) looking…