相关论文: Probing the evolution of molecular cloud structure…
We investigate the triggering of star formation and the formation of stellar clusters in molecular clouds that form as the ISM passes through spiral shocks. The spiral shock compresses gas into $\sim$100 pc long main star formation ridge,…
The isothermal gravitational collapse and fragmentation of a region within a molecular cloud and the subsequent formation of a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The clump mass spectrum which forms during the fragmentation…
Super star clusters --- extremely massive clusters found predominately in starburst environments --- are essential building blocks in the formation of galaxies and thought to dominate star formation in the high-redshift universe. However,…
The turbulent destruction of a cloud subject to the passage of an adiabatic shock is studied. We find large discrepancies between the lifetime of the cloud and the analytical result of Hartquist et al. (1986). These differences appear to be…
The evolution of substructure embedded in non-dissipative dark halos is studied through N-body simulations of isolated systems, both in and out of initial equilibrium, complementing cosmological simulations of the growth of structure. We…
In this series of papers we study the structure of the atomic to molecular transition in the giant atomic-molecular complexes that are the repositories of most molecular gas in galaxies, with the ultimate goal of attaining a better…
The mass assembly in star forming regions arises from the hierarchical structure in molecular clouds in tandem with fragmentation at different scales. In this paper, we present a study of the fragmentation of massive clumps covering a range…
We present results from our numerical simulations of collapsing massive molecular cloud cores. These numerical calculations show that massive stars assemble quickly with mass accretion rates exceeding 10^-3 Msol/yr and confirm that the mass…
The observed rapid onset of star formation in molecular clouds requires rapid formation of dense fragments which can collapse individually before being overtaken by global gravitationally-driven flows. Many previous investigations have…
We describe a series of experiments involving the creation of cylindrical packings of star-shaped particles, and an exploration of the stability of these packings. The stars cover a broad range of arm sizes and frictional properties. We…
Dust grains in neutral gas behave as aerodynamic particles, so they can develop large density fluctuations independent of gas density fluctuations. Specifically, gas turbulence can drive order-of-magnitude 'resonant' fluctuations in the…
We present $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O data as the next major release for the CHaMP project, an unbiased sample of Galactic molecular clouds in $l$ = 280$^{\circ}$-300$^{\circ}$. From a radiative transfer analysis, we…
We present a first attempt to construct an analytic model for a clumped gas and dust disk and apply it to the Galactic Centre. The clumps are described as isothermal spheres partially ionized by the external UV radiation field. The disk…
The inner parsec of our Galaxy contains tens of Wolf-Rayet stars whose powerful outflows are constantly interacting while filling the region with hot, diffuse plasma. Theoretical models have shown that, in some cases, the collision of…
Since molecular clouds form stars, at least some parts of them must be in a state of collapse. However, there is a long-standing debate as to whether that collapse is local, involving only a small fraction of the cloud mass, or global, with…
This review summarizes the argument for molecular clouds being dominated by turbulence, most likely super-Alfvenic turbulence. Five lines of observational evidence are given: molecular linewidths and line shapes, nonequilibrium chemical…
Observations of globular clusters show that they have universal lognormal mass functions with a characteristic peak at $\sim 2\times 10^{5}\, {\rm{M_{\odot}}}$, but the origin of this peaked distribution is highly debated. Here we…
I review recent results derived from numerical simulations of the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM), in particular concerning the nature and formation of turbulent clouds, methods for comparing the structure in simulations and…
We investigate the formation of protostellar clusters during the collapse of dense molecular cloud cores with a focus on the evolution of potential and kinetic energy, the degree of substructure, and the early phase of mass segregation. Our…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the sites of star formation in the Galaxy. Many of their properties can be understood in terms of a model in which the GMCs and the star-forming clumps within them are in approximate pressure equilibrium,…