Star formation in evolving molecular clouds

Abstract

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 questions regarding their evolution and star formation activity remain open. While numerical simulations feature a large number and complexity of involved physical processes, this plenty of effects may hide the fundamentals that determine the evolution of molecular clouds and enable the formation of stars. Purely analytical models, on the other hand, tend to suffer from rough approximations or a lack of completeness, limiting their predictive power. In this paper, we present a model that incorporates central concepts of astrophysics as well as reliable results from recent simulations of molecular clouds and their evolutionary paths. Based on that, we construct a self-consistent semi-analytical framework that describes the formation, evolution and star formation activity of molecular clouds, including a number of feedback effects to account for the complex processes inside those objects. The final equation system is solved numerically but at much lower computational expense than, e.g., hydrodynamical descriptions of comparable systems. The model presented in this paper agrees well with a broad range of observational results, showing that molecular cloud evolution can be understood as an interplay between accretion, global collapse, star formation and stellar feedback.

11 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (11)

• Analytical theory for the initial mass function: CO clumps and prestellar cores
• The Density Probability Distribution in Compressible Isothermal Turbulence: Solenoidal versus Compressive Forcing
• On the Star Formation Efficiency of Turbulent Magnetized Clouds
• What determines the density structure of molecular clouds ? A case study of Orion B with Herschel
• Before the first supernova: combined effects of HII regions and winds on molecular clouds
• The Nature of the Dense Core Population in the Pipe Nebula: Thermal Cores Under Pressure
• Limiting Accretion onto Massive Stars by Fragmentation-Induced Starvation
• Understanding Spatial and Spectral Morphologies of Ultracompact H II Regions
• Understanding star formation in molecular clouds I. Effects of line-of-sight contamination on the column density structure
• Turbulence sets the initial conditions for star formation in high-pressure environments
• Can Protostellar Jets Drive Supersonic Turbulence in Molecular Clouds?