Turbulent Fragmentation and Star Formation

Abstract

We review the main results from recent numerical simulations of turbulent fragmentation and star formation. Specifically, we discuss the observed scaling relationships, the ``quiescent'' (subsonic) nature of many star-forming cores, their energy balance, their synthesized polarized dust emission, the ages of stars associated with the molecular gas from which they have formed, the mass spectra of clumps, and the density and column density probability distribution function of the gas. We then give a critical discussion on recent attempts to explain and/or predict the star formation efficiency and the stellar initial mass function from the statistical nature of turbulent fields. Finally, it appears that turbulent fragmentation alone cannot account for the final stages of fragmentation: although the turbulent velocity field is able to produce filaments, the spatial distribution of cores in such filaments is better explained in terms of gravitational fragmentation.

14 pages, 1 ps figure. Refered invited review, to appear in "Magnetic Fields and Star Formation: Theory versus Observations", eds. A.I. Gomez de Castro et al. (Kluwer), in press

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Mass Spectra of Cores in Turbulent Molecular Clouds and Implications for the Initial Mass Function
• Star formation in the filament of S254-S258 OB complex: a cluster in the process of making
• On the properties of fractal cloud complexes
• A stochastic and analytical model of hierarchical fragmentation: The fragmentation of gas structures into young stellar objects in the interstellar medium