Other
Scientific paper
Jun 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998phdt........28k&link_type=abstract
PhD Thesis, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany, 1998.
Other
2
Scientific paper
Using smoothed particle hydrodynamics in combination with the special-purpose hardware device Grape, we numerically investigate the initial phases of the star-formation process. We follow the dynamical evolution and fragmentation of large regions within molecular clouds to form a cluster of protostellar cores. Adopting an isothermal description of self-gravitating gas, we show that even this simple model is able to explain many of the observed features of star-forming regions and identify the processes that dominate the formation and evolution of protostellar cores. The number of protostellar cores that form during the evolution is roughly proportional to the number of Jeans masses contained in the system initially. The overall dynamical behavior of the system is insensitive to the adopted initial conditions, since it evolves through a sequence of highly probabilistic events. The interplay between self-gravity and gas pressure creates a complex network of clumps, sheets and filaments, and the subsequent evolution leads to the formation of a bound cluster of protostellar cores. These grow in mass via accretion from the available gas reservoir and are subject to highly unpredictable N-body interactions. The spatial and dynamical properties of the protostellar cluster are remarkably similar to the properties of observed young stellar clusters. Furthermore, we find that the angular momenta of protostellar cores are correlated with their location. The mass spectrum of gas clumps can be well approximated by a power-law distribution dN/dM ~ M-1.5, comparable to observed molecular clouds. In contrast, the mass spectrum of protostellar cores is best described by a log-normal distribution which peaks roughly at the overall Jeans mass of the system. With the appropriate scaling, this is in excellent agreement with the IMF for multiple stellar systems and suggests a star-formation efficiency which ranges from 5 -- 15%.
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