The future of low-mass condensations in a core of molecular cloud

Abstract

Two scenarios have been proposed for evolution of star forming cores: gravitational fragmentation of larger structures and coalescence of smaller entities which are formed from some instabilities. Here, we turn our attention to the latter idea to investigate the evolution of observed low-mass condensations (LMCs) in the cores of molecular clouds. For this purpose, we implement the evolution of the observed LMCs of Taurus molecular cloud~1 (TMC-1). The core is modeled as a contracting cylinder with randomly spawned condensations in the middle region around its axis. For advancing bodies in their trajectories, we represent the acceleration of a particular LMC in terms of a fourth-order polynomial using the predictor-corrector scheme. Whenever two LMCs collide, they are assumed to be merged in one large condensation containing all the masses of the two progenitors. Implementations of many computer experiments with a wide variety of the free parameters show that the LMCs merge to form star-forming regions in the core. The results show that the total mechanical energy of the core increases by time, and its rate of increasing decreases by facilitating the merger. Finally, the mass spectrum index and goodness-of-fit are determined with 50% error in the number of mass points. The results show that the goodness-of-fit will be refined at the end of simulations, and the mass spectrum index inclines to the observed values for the moderate mass objects. The simulations show that the TMC-1 turns about 40% of its mass into cluster of dynamically unstable protostellar cores. In general, we suggest that the future of LMCs in a core of molecular cloud is merger to convert about half of its initial masses into a cluster of gravitationally unstable protostellar cores.

arXiv comment20 pages, 8 figures, accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (21)

• Dynamical Friction in a Gaseous Medium
• The mass function of dense molecular cores and the origin of the IMF
• Star formation in clusters: a survey of compact mm-wave sources in the Serpens core
• Clump morphology and evolution in MHD simulations of molecular cloud formation
• Flows, Fragmentation, and Star Formation. I. Low-mass Stars in Taurus
• Equilibrium Star Cluster Formation
• A Survey for Infall Motions toward Starless Cores. I. CS (2-1) and N${}_2$H${}^{+}$ (1-0) Observations
• The initial conditions of star formation in the Ophiuchus main cloud: Kinematics of the protocluster condensations
• Large Area Mapping at 850 Microns. IV. Analysis of the Clump Distribution in the Orion B South Molecular Cloud
• A Survey For Infall Motions Toward Starless Cores. III. CS (3-2) and DCO+(2-1) Observations
• The Spitzer c2d Survey of Nearby Dense Cores. V. Discovery of a VeLLO in the "Starless" Dense Core L328
• A discontinuity in the low-mass IMF - the case of high multiplicity
• High-resolution simulations of clump-clump collisions using SPH with Particle Splitting
• Small Structures via Thermal Instability of Partially Ionized Plasma. I. Condensation Mode
• Numerical Star-Formation Studies -- A Status Report
• The Inevitable Future of the Starless Core Barnard 68
• Hydrodynamical simulations of a cloud of interacting gas fragments
• Formation of Fluctuations in the Molecular Slab via Isobaric Thermal Instability
• Dense core compression and fragmentation induced by the scattering of hydromagnetic waves
• Investigating thermal evolution of the self-gravitating one dimensional molecular cloud by smoothed particle hydrodynamics
• Studies of Dense Cores with ALMA

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Formation of low-mass condensations in the molecular cloud cores via thermal instability
• Dynamical friction in a gaseous medium with a large-scale magnetic field