Recent Advances in the Collapse and Fragmentation of Turbulent Molecular Cloud Cores PDF Download

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Book Description
The formation of Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) sets the stage for the formation of protostellar systems by the gravitational collapse of dense regions within the GMC that fragment into smaller core components that in turn condense into stars. Developing a comprehensive theory of star formation remains one of the most elusive, and most important, goals of theoretical astrophysics. Inherent in the difficulty in attaining this goal is that the gravitational collapse depends critically upon initial conditions within the cores which only recently have been known with sufficient accuracy to permit a realistic theoretical attack on the problem. Observations of stars in the vicinity of the Sun show that binary systems are prevalent and appear to be a general outcome of the collapse and fragmentation process. Despite years of progress, theoretical studies have still not determined why binary stars occur with such frequency, or indeed, even what processes determine the transition from single stars to binaries and thence to multiple stellar systems. One of the major goals of this research is to understand the nature of the formation of binary and multiple stellar systems with typical low mass stars 0.2 to 3 M{sub {circle_dot}} and the physical properties of these systems. Basic questions concerning this process remain unanswered. What determines the fraction of an unstable cloud that will fragment into protostellar objects? What determines the pattern of stellar clustering into binaries and multiple systems? Even after fragmentation occurs, we have little understanding of the subsequent collapse. Consequently, it is unclear how the mass distribution of fragments maps onto eventual stellar masses, something we must understand to explain the stellar initial mass function (IMF). We will first discuss the development of the numerical methodology that will contribute to answering these questions. This technology consists of a 3D parallel, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) self-gravitational, radiation-hydrodynamics code that we have developed. We will present new results for the gravitational collapse and fragmentation of marginally stable turbulent molecular cloud cores and follow the collapse of high mass fragments as they interact with the radiation of the protostars forming at their centers. We will discuss the theoretical difficulties in forming binary stars and the role of turbulence in their formation.