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Formation of Stellar Clusters and the Importance of Thermodynamics for Fragmentation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2007

Ralf S. Klessen ,
Paul C. Clark  and
Simon C. O. Glover
Ralf S. Klessen
Affiliation:
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str. 2, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Paul C. Clark
Affiliation:
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str. 2, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Simon C. O. Glover
Affiliation:
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
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Abstract

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We discuss results from numerical simulations of star cluster formation in the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM). The thermodynamic behavior of the star-forming gas plays a crucial role in fragmentation and determines the stellar mass function as well as the dynamic properties of the nascent stellar cluster. This holds for star formation in molecular clouds in the solar neighborhood as well as for the formation of the very first stars in the early universe. The thermodynamic state of the ISM is a result of the balance between heating and cooling processes, which in turn are determined by atomic and molecular physics and by chemical abundances. Features in the effective equation of state of the gas, such as a transition from a cooling to a heating regime, define a characteristic mass scale for fragmentation and so set the peak of the initial mass function of stars (IMF). As it is based on fundamental physical quantities and constants, this is an attractive approach to explain the apparent universality of the IMF in the solar neighborhood as well as the transition from purely primordial high-mass star formation to the more normal low-mass mode observed today.

Keywords

stars: formation – stars: mass function – early universe – hydrodynamics – equation of state – methods: numerical
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 3 , Symposium S246: Dynamical Evolution of Dense Stellar Systems , September 2007 , pp. 3 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2008

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