The turbulent formation of stars

Abstract

How stars are born from clouds of gas is a rich physics problem whose solution will inform our understanding of not just stars but also planets, galaxies, and the universe itself. Star formation is stupendously inefficient. Take the Milky Way. Our galaxy contains about a billion solar masses of fresh gas available to form stars-and yet it produces only one solar mass of new stars a year. Accounting for that inefficiency is one of the biggest challenges of modern astrophysics. Why should we care about star formation? Because the process powers the evolution of galaxies and sets the initial conditions for planet formation and thus, ultimately, for life.

published in Physics Today, cover story, see http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~chfeder/pubs/physics_today/physics_today.html

References in corpus (11)

• Theory of Star Formation
• Primordial Star Formation under the Influence of Far Ultraviolet Radiation: 1540 Cosmological Halos and the Stellar Mass Distribution
• The Mass Spectrum of the First Stars
• Inefficient star formation through turbulence, magnetic fields and feedback
• The link between turbulence, magnetic fields, filaments, and star formation in the Central Molecular Zone cloud G0.253+0.016
• Star formation rates and efficiencies in the Galactic Centre
• Modeling jet and outflow feedback during star cluster formation
• Turbulence and star formation efficiency in molecular clouds: solenoidal versus compressive motions in Orion B
• On the effective turbulence driving mode of molecular clouds formed in disc galaxies
• Binary Star Formation and the Outflows from their Discs
• The driving of turbulence in simulations of molecular cloud formation and evolution

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Turbulent Cold Flows Gave Birth to the First Quasars
• The importance of magnetic fields for the initial mass function of the first stars
• Physical Processes in Star Formation
• Properties of magnetohydrodynamic modes in compressively driven plasma turbulence
• The IMF and multiplicity of stars from gravity, turbulence, magnetic fields, radiation and outflow feedback
• Magnetic fields in the Milky Way from pulsar observations: effect of the correlation between thermal electrons and magnetic fields
• The aromatic Universe
• Magnetic field fluctuations in anisotropic, supersonic turbulence
• From giant clumps to clouds -- III. The connection between star formation and turbulence in the ISM
• On the turbulence driving mode of expanding HII regions
• On the compressive nature of turbulence driven by ionising feedback in the pillars of the Carina Nebula
• A multi-shock model for the density variance of anisotropic, highly-magnetised, supersonic turbulence
• Efficient highly-subsonic turbulent dynamo and growth of primordial magnetic fields
• Simulations and observational tests of primordial magnetic fields from Cosmic Microwave Background constraints
• Analysis of Magnetohydrodynamic Perturbations in Radial-field Solar Wind from Parker Solar Probe Observations
• Implementation of stellar heating feedback in simulations of star cluster formation: effects on the initial mass function
• The Dependence of the Hierarchical Distribution of Star Clusters on Galactic Environment
• A new method for measuring the 3D turbulent velocity dispersion of molecular clouds
• Turbulence Generation by Shock Interaction with a Highly Non-Uniform Medium
• Correlation-enhanced interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate with parametric magnon pairs and virtual magnons
• The Cloud Factory II: Gravoturbulent Kinematics of Resolved Molecular Clouds in a Galactic Potential
• The driving mode of shock-driven turbulence
• Numerical viscosity and resistivity in MHD turbulence simulations
• The CO universe: Modelling CO emission and H${}_2$ abundance in cosmological galaxy formation simulations
• Reconstructing three-dimensional densities from two-dimensional observations of molecular gas
• On the origin of compressive turbulence in protoclumps in high redshift disks
• Star Formation