Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 1987
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987a%26a...171..225c&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 171, no. 1-2, Jan. 1987, p. 225-232.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
86
Fragmentation, Gravitational Effects, Interstellar Matter, Molecular Clouds, Gas Dynamics, Hydrogen Clouds, Many Body Problem, Scaling Laws
Scientific paper
It is now well established from observations that the mass M, the radius R and the internal velocity dispersion, Δv, of molecular clouds are strongly correlated by definite scaling laws, first noticed by Larson (1981): M ∝ R2, Δv ∝ R1/2. In this paper it is shown that interstellar clouds which are close to gravitational instability exhibit precisely the same scaling laws, provided that they interact with a constant pressure environment. The author suggests that these conditions may trigger the fragmentation of clouds, which, in this picture, occurs prior to collapse. Furthermore, fragments or clumps may in turn experience gravitational instability and further fragmentation, leading to the formation of a hierarchy of embedded subsystems of clumps governed by the aforementioned scaling laws.
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