相关论文: Star formation in infrared dark clouds: Self-gravi…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
The cold interstellar medium (ISM) plays a central role in the galaxy evolution process. It is the reservoir that fuels galaxy growth via star formation, the repository of material formed by these stars, and a sensitive tracer of internal…
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…
The interplay between gravity, turbulence and the magnetic field determines the evolution of the molecular ISM and the formation of the stars. In spite of growing interests, there remains a lack of understanding of the importance of…
The thermal and chemical evolution of gravitationally collapsing protostellar clouds is investigated, focusing attention on their dependence on metallicity. Calculations are carried out for a range of metallicities spanning the local…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
Molecular clouds are the principle stellar nurseries of our universe, keeping them in the focus of both observational and theoretical studies. From observations, some of the key properties of molecular clouds are well known but many…
Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) are unique laboratories to study the initial conditions of high-mass star and star cluster formation. We present high-sensitivity and high-angular resolution IRAM PdBI observations of N2H+ (1-0) towards IRDC…
Dust is formed in the expanding atmosphere during late stages of stellar evolution. Dust influences the dynamics and thermodynamics of the stellar atmosphere by its opacity. The dust opacity depends both on the optical properties of the…
We present numerical evidence of dynamic star formation in which the accreted stellar mass grows superlinearly with time, roughly as $t^2$. We perform simulations of star formation in self-gravitating hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic…
The interplay between the ISM and the massive stars formed in clusters and, more generally, in recent events of star formation is reviewed via the global effects each has on the other. The pre-existing environment affects the properties of…
Interstellar space is filled with a dilute mixture of charged particles, atoms, molecules and dust grains, called the interstellar medium (ISM). Understanding its physical properties and dynamical behavior is of pivotal importance to many…
We demonstrate that the observationally inferred rapid onset of star formation after parental molecular clouds have assembled can be achieved by flow-driven cloud formation of atomic gas, using our previous three-dimensional numerical…
Two aspects of filamentary molecular cloud evolution are addressed: (1) Exploring analytically the role of the environment for the evolution of filaments demonstrates that considering them in isolation (i.e. just addressing the…
Star formation is a multi-scale, multi-physics problem ranging from the size scale of molecular clouds ($\sim$10s pc) down to the size scales of dense prestellar cores ($\sim$0.1 pc) that are the birth sites of stars. Several physical…
Molecular clouds are a fundamental ingredient of galaxies: they are the channels that transform the diffuse gas into stars. The detailed process of how they do it is not completely understood. We review the current knowledge of molecular…
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,…
Recent progress in the understanding of star formation is summarized. A consistent picture is emerging where molecular clouds form with turbulent velocity fields and clumpy substructure, imprinted already during their formation. The clouds…
Due to their low gravitational energies, dwarf galaxies are greatly exposed to energetical influences from internal and external sources. By means of chemodynamical models we show that their star formation is inherently self-regulated, that…
[Abridged] Star and planet formation are the complex outcomes of gravitational collapse and angular momentum transport mediated by protostellar and protoplanetary disks. In this review we focus on the role of gravitational instability in…