The formation of stars and stellar clusters remains a grand challenge problem in astrophysics that has important implications for the evolution of the interstellar medium as well as shaping the evolution of galaxies.The computational challenges are formidable and involve a coupling of highly non-linear physical processes such as hydrodynamics, self-gravity, magnetic fields, radiation transfer, supersonic turbulence, ionization, protostellar outflows, stellar winds and chemistry that have both disparate timescales as well as operate over many decades of physical length scale.These processes can regulate the feedback from nascent protostars onto the surrounding turbulent gas clouds that are the embryos of new star formation, and as a result, the feedback itself can influence the gaseous reservoir feeding newly formed protostars which in turn influence the star formation process.

Most gas in giant molecular clouds is relatively low-density and forms star inefficiently, converting only a small fraction of its mass to stars per dynamical time. However, star formation models generally predict the existence of a threshold density above which the process is efficient and most mass collapses to stars on a dynamical timescale. A number of authors have proposed observational techniques to search for a threshold density above which star formation is efficient, but it is unclear which of these techniques, if any, are reliable. In this paper we use detailed simulations of turbulent, magnetised star-forming clouds, including stellar radiation and outflow feedback, to investigate whether it is possible to recover star formation thresholds using current observational techniques. Using mock observations of the simulations at realistic resolutions, we show that plots of projected star formation efficiency per free-fall time εff can detect the presence of a threshold, but that the resolutions typical of current dust emission or absorption surveys are insufficient to determine its value. In contrast, proposed alternative diagnostics based on a change in the slope of the gas surface density versus star formation rate surface density (Kennicutt-Schmidt relation) or on the correlation between young stellar object counts and gas mass as a function of density are ineffective at detecting thresholds even when they are present. The signatures in these diagnostics sometimes taken as indicative of a threshold in observations, which we generally reproduce in our mock observations, do not prove to correspond to real physical features in the 3D gas distribution.

We present a large suite of simulations of the formation of low-mass star clusters. Our simulations include an extensive set of physical processes -- magnetohydrodynamics, radiative transfer, and protostellar outflows -- and span a wide range of virial parameters and magnetic field strengths. Comparing the outcomes of our simulations to observations, we find that simulations remaining close to virial balance throughout their history produce star formation efficiencies and initial mass function (IMF) peaks that are stable in time and in reasonable agreement with observations. Our results indicate that small-scale dissipation effects near the protostellar surface provide a feedback loop for stabilizing the star formation efficiency. This is true regardless of whether the balance is maintained by input of energy from large scale forcing or by strong magnetic fields that inhibit collapse. In contrast, simulations that leave virial balance and undergo runaway collapse form stars too efficiently and produce an IMF that becomes increasingly top-heavy with time. In all cases we find that the competition between magnetic flux advection toward the protostar and outward advection due to magnetic interchange instabilities, and the competition between turbulent amplification and reconnection close to newly-formed protostars renders the local magnetic field structure insensitive to the strength of the large-scale field, ensuring that radiation is always more important than magnetic support in setting the fragmentation scale and thus the IMF peak mass. The statistics of multiple stellar systems are similarly insensitive to variations in the initial conditions and generally agree with observations within the range of statistical uncertainty.

We present simulations of accretion on to point masses embedded in an isothermal gas that is magnetized and supersonically turbulent, as occurs for protostars in molecular clouds. We use the ORION2 adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code to carry out ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations for an rms Mach number M-rms = 5 and a wide range of Alfven Mach numbers. We find that the probability density functions for accretion rates in all models are very wide (+/- 0.5 dex) and asymmetric, tilted to low accretion rates; the mean accretion rate is about twice the median. We find that the results of Lee et al. for magnetized Bondi-Hoyle accretion with the relative velocity parallel to the field describe our results to within a factor of 2, and we suggest that this should be valid at least fo rM(rms) less than or similar to 10. Our results show that turbulent magnetic fields of the strength observed in molecular clouds reduce the accretion rate relative to the classical Bondi-Hoyle rate by a factor of a few for Alfven Mach numbers of order unity, but this is comparable to the reduction due to supersonic hydrodynamic turbulence alone. This reduction in accretion rates should be taken into account in analytic models of competitive accretion and analytic estimates of the accretion luminosities of young stellar objects in molecular clouds.

The turbulent environment from which stars form may lead to misalignment between the stellar spin and the remnant protoplanetary disk.By using hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we demonstrate that a wide range of stellar obliquities may be produced as a by-product of forming a star within a turbulent environment.We present a simple semi-analytic model that reveals this connection between the turbulent motions and the orientation of a star and its disk.Our results are consistent with the observed obliquity distribution of hot Jupiters.Migration of misaligned hot Jupiters may, therefore, be due to tidal dissipation in the disk, rather than tidal dissipation of the star-planet interaction.

Late protostellar accretion disks are often idealized as thin, Keplerian, and laminar in nature; however, many disk instabilities are not insensitive to the initial turbulence spectrum. One such mode of turbulence driving in protostellar disks is by anisotropic core accretion. We build on the results of Gammie (2001), Rice et al. (2005), and SteimanCameron et al. (2013), now conducting global core collapse simulations with free accretion. We investigate the effects of heavy anisotropic accretion on fragmentation and the proliferation of gravitational instabilities into a gravito-turbulent state. We use the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code, Orion, to perform high-resolution simulations of solar mass star-forming molecular cloud cores located in massive star-forming regions. We include self-gravity, use a baroclinic equation of state, and represent regions exceeding the maximum grid resolution with sink particles, accurately simulating Bondi accretion. The turbulence, fragmentation, and laminarization of the ensuing late protostellar and early protoplanetary disk is studied during periods of high mass-infall rates. We also outline the development of a global baroclinic cooling prescription for these core collapse simulations forming T Tauri protostellar systems. Our model self-consistently treats the viscously heated disk equilibrium temperature and cooling time using global disk properties. These results will be used to initialize a culminating study of baroclinic instabilities in protoplanetary disks.

In regions of star formation, protostars and newborn stars will accrete mass from their natal clouds. These clouds are threaded by magnetic fields with a strength characterized by the plasma beta-the ratio of thermal and magnetic pressures. Observations show that molecular clouds have beta less than or similar to 1, so magnetic fields have the potential to play a significant role in the accretion process. We have carried out a numerical study of the effect of large-scale magnetic fields on the rate of accretion onto a uniformly moving point particle from a uniform, non-self-gravitating, isothermal gas. We consider gas moving with sonic Mach numbers of up to M approximate to 45; magnetic fields that are either parallel, perpendicular, or oriented 45 degrees to the flow; and beta as low as 0.01. Our simulations utilize adaptive mesh refinement in order to obtain high spatial resolution where it is needed; this also allows the boundaries to be far from the accreting object to avoid unphysical effects arising from boundary conditions. Additionally, we show that our results are independent of our exact prescription for accreting mass in the sink particle. We give simple expressions for the steady-state accretion rate as a function of beta and M for the parallel and perpendicular orientations. Using typical molecular cloud values of M similar to 5 and beta similar to 0.04 from the literature, our fits suggest that a 0.4 M-circle dot star accretes similar to 4 x 10(-9) M-circle dot yr(-1), almost a factor of two less than accretion rates predicted by hydrodynamic models. This disparity can grow to orders of magnitude for stronger fields and lower Mach numbers. We also discuss the applicability of these accretion rates versus accretion rates expected from gravitational collapse, and under what conditions a steady state is possible. The reduction in the accretion rate in a magnetized medium leads to an increase in the time required to form stars in competitive accretion models, making such models less efficient than predicted by Bondi-Hoyle rates. Our results should find application in numerical codes, enabling accurate sub-grid models of sink particles accreting from magnetized media.

We present a set of 3-dimensional, radiation-magnetohydrodynamic calculations of the gravitational collapse of massive (300 Msun), star-forming molecular cloud cores. We show that the combined effects of magnetic fields and radiative feedback strongly suppress core fragmentation, leading to the production of single star systems rather than small clusters. We find that the two processes are efficient at suppressing fragmentation in different regimes, with the feedback most effective in the dense, central region and the magnetic field most effective in more diffuse, outer regions. Thus, the combination of the two is much more effective at suppressing fragmentation than either one considered in isolation. Our work suggests that typical massive cores, which have mass-to-flux ratios of about 2 relative to critical, likely form a single star system, but that cores with weaker fields may form a small star cluster. This result helps us understand why the observed relationship between the core mass function and the stellar initial mass function holds even for ~100 Msun cores with many thermal Jeans masses of material. We also demonstrate that a ~40 AU Keplerian disk is able to form in our simulations, despite the braking effect caused by the strong magnetic field.

We investigate the role discrete clumps embedded in an astrophysical jet play on the jet's morphology and line emission characteristics. By varying clumps' size, density, position, and velocity, we cover a range of parameter space motivated by observations of objects such as the Herbig Haro object HH~34. We here extend the results presented in Yirak et al. 2009, including how analysis of individual observations may lead to spurious sinusoidal variation whose parameters vary widely over time, owing chiefly to interacts between clumps. The goodness of the fits, while poor in all simulations, are best when clump-clump collisions are minimal. Our results indicate that a large velocity dispersion leads to a clump-clump collision-dominated flow which disrupts the jet beam. Finally, we present synthetic emission images of H-$\alpha$ and [SII] and note an excess of [SII] emission along the jet length as compared to observations. This suggests that observed beams undergo earlier processing, if they are present at all.

We have carried out a numerical study of the effect of large-scale magnetic fields on the rate of accretion from a uniform, isothermal gas onto a resistive, stationary point mass. Only mass, not magnetic flux, accretes onto the point mass. The simulations for this study avoid complications arising from boundary conditions by keeping the boundaries far from the accreting object. Our simulations leverage adaptive refinement methodology to attain high spatial fidelity close to the accreting object. Our results are particularly relevant to the problem of star formation from a magnetized molecular cloud in which thermal energy is radiated away on timescales much shorter than the dynamical timescale. Contrary to the adiabatic case, our simulations show convergence toward a finite accretion rate in the limit in which the radius of the accreting object vanishes, regardless of magnetic field strength. For very weak magnetic fields, the accretion rate first approaches the Bondi value and then drops by a factor of ∼2 as magnetic flux builds up near the point mass. For strong magnetic fields, the steady-state accretion rate is reduced by a factor of ∼0.2 β1/2 compared to the Bondi value, where β is the ratio of the gas pressure to the magnetic pressure. We give a simple expression for the accretion rate as a function of the magnetic field strength. Approximate analytic results are given in the Appendices for both time-dependent accretion in the limit of weak magnetic fields and steady-state accretion for the case of strong magnetic fields.

We report the results of a series of AMR radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the collapse of massive star forming clouds using the ORION code. These simulations are the first to include the feedback effects protostellar outflows, as well as protostellar radiative heating and radiation pressure exerted on the infalling, dusty gas. We find that that outflows evacuate polar cavities of reduced optical depth through the ambient core. These enhance the radiative flux in the poleward direction so that it is 1.7 to 15 times larger than that in the midplane. As a result the radiative heating and outward radiation force exerted on the protostellar disk and infalling cloud gas in the equatorial direction are greatly diminished. The simultaneously reduces the Eddington radiation pressure barrier to high-mass star formation and increases the minimum threshold surface density for radiative heating to suppress fragmentation compared to models that do not include outflows. The strength of both these effects depends on the initial core surface density. Lower surface density cores have longer free-fall times and thus massive stars formed within them undergo more Kelvin contraction as the core collapses, leading to more powerful outflows. Furthermore, in lower surface density clouds the ratio of the time required for the outflow to break out of the core to the core free-fall time is smaller, so that these clouds are consequently influenced by outflows at earlier stages of collapse. As a result, outflow effects are strongest in low surface density cores and weakest in high surface density one. We also find that radiation focusing in the direction of outflow cavities is sufficient to prevent the formation of radiation pressure-supported circumstellar gas bubbles, in contrast to models which neglect protostellar outflow feedback.

Isolated regions of higher density populate the interstellar medium (ISM) on all scales—from molecular clouds, to the star-forming regions known as cores, to heterogeneous ejecta found near planetary nebulae and supernova remnants. These clumps interact with winds and shocks from nearby energetic sources. Understanding the interactions of shocked clumps is vital to our understanding of the composition, morphology, and evolution of the ISM. The evolution of shocked clumps is well understood in the limiting "adiabatic" case where physical processes such as self-gravity, heat conduction, radiative cooling, and magnetic fields are ignored. In this paper, we address the issue of evolution and convergence when one of these processes—radiative cooling—is included. Numeric convergence studies demonstrate that the evolution of an adiabatic clump is well captured by roughly 100 cells per clump radius. The presence of radiative cooling, however, imposes limits on the problem due to the removal of thermal energy. Numerical studies which include radiative cooling typically adopt the 100–200 cells per clump radius resolution. In this paper, we present the results of a convergence study for radiatively cooling clumps undertaken over a broad range of resolutions, from 12 to 1536 cells per clump radius, employing adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) in a two-dimensional axisymmetric geometry (2.5 dimensions). We also provide a fully three-dimensional simulation, at 192 cells per clump radius, which supports our 2.5 dimensional results. We find no appreciable self-convergence at ∼100 cells per clump radius as small-scale differences owing to increasingly resolving the cooling length have global effects. We therefore conclude that self-convergence is an insufficient criterion to apply on its own when addressing the question of sufficient resolution for radiatively cooled shocked clump simulations. We suggest the adoption of alternate criteria to support a statement of sufficient resolution, such as the demonstration of adequate resolution of the cooling layers behind shocks. We discuss associated refinement criteria for AMR codes.

Laboratory astrophysics holds great promise not only as a highly effective validation tool for astrophysical magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) codes but it also presents a unique challenge for these codes. The high-density plasmas found in these experiments are not well modeled by the ideal equations of state (EOS) found in most astrophysical simulation codes. To solve this problem, we replaced the ideal EOS scheme in an existing MHD code, AstroBEAR, with a non-ideal EOS method and validated our implementation with van der Waals shock tube tests. The improved code is also able to model flows that contain more than one material, as required in laboratory experiments. Simulations of jet experiments performed at the OMEGA Laser reproduce the morphology of the jet much better than when the code used a single material and an ideal EOS.

The fragmentation of star-forming interstellar clouds, and the resulting stellar initial mass function (IMF), is strongly affected by the temperature structure of the collapsing gas. Since radiation feedback from embedded stars can modify this as collapse proceeds, feedback plays an important role in determining the IMF. However, the effects and importance of radiative heating are likely to depend strongly on the surface density of the collapsing clouds, which determines both their effectiveness at trapping radiation and the accretion luminosities of the stars forming within them. In this paper we report a suite of adaptive mesh refinement radiation-hydrodynamic simulations using the ORION code in which we isolate the effect of column density on fragmentation by following the collapse of clouds of varying column density while holding the mass, initial density and velocity structure, and initial virial ratio fixed. We find that radiation does not significantly modify the overall star formation rate or efficiency, but that it suppresses fragmentation more and more as cloud surface densities increase from those typical of low mass star-forming regions like Taurus, through the typical surface density of massive star-forming clouds in the Galaxy, up to conditions found only in super star clusters. In regions of low surface density, fragmentation during collapse leads to the formation of small clusters rather than individual massive star systems, greatly reducing the fraction of the stellar population with masses >~ 10 Msun. Our simulations have important implications for the formation of massive stars and the universality of the IMF.

s of recently accepted papers Circumstellar disks around Herbig Be stars T. Alonso-Albi, A. Fuente, R. Bachiller, R. Neri, P. Planesas, L. Testi, O. Berné, and C. Joblin 1 Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, Apdo. 112, 28803 Alcal de Henares (Madrid), Spain 2 Institut de Radio Astronomie Milimetrique, 300 rue de la Piscine, Domaine Universitaire de Grenoble, 38406 St. Martin d’Hères, France 3 Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, Joint ALMA Office, Santiago, Chile 4 INAF Osservatorio Astrofisico de Arcetri, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy 5 European Southern Observatory, Karl Schwarzschild str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany 6 Centre d’Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, CNRS et Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3, Observatoire MidiPyrénées, 9 Av. du Colonel Roche, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 04, France E-mail contact: t.alonso at oan.es Aims. Our goal is to investigate the properties of the circumstellar disks around intermediate mass stars to determine their occurrence, lifetime and evolution. Methods. We completed a search for circumstellar disks around Herbig Be stars using the NRAO Very Large Array (VLA) and the IRAM Plateau de Bure (PdB) interferometers. Thus far, we have observed 6 objects with 4 successful detections. The results towards 3 of these stars (R Mon, MWC 1080, MWC 137) were presented elsewhere. We present our new VLA and PdBI data for the three objects MWC 297, Z CMa, and LKHα 215. We constructed the SED from near-IR to centimeter wavelengths by adding our millimeter and centimeter data to the available data at other wavelengths, mainly Spitzer images. The entire SED was fitted using a disk+envelope model. In addition, we compiled all the disk millimeter observations in the literature and completed a statistical analysis of all the data. Results. We show that the disk mass is usually only a small percentage (less than 10%) of the mass of the entire envelope in HBe stars. For the disks, there are large source-to-source variations. Two disks in our sample, R Mon and Z CMa, have similar sizes and masses to those found in T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars. The disks around MWC 1080 and MWC 297 are, however, smaller (τout < 100 AU). We did not detect the disks towards MWC 137 and LkHα 215 at millimeter wavelengths, which limits the mass and the size of the possible circumstellar disks. Conclusions. A comparison between our data and previous results for T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars indicates that although massive disks (∼0.1 M⊙) are found in young objects (∼10 4 yr), the masses of the disks around Herbig Be stars are usually 5-10 times lower than those around lower mass stars. We propose that disk photoevaporation is responsible for this behavior. In Herbig Be stars, the UV radiation disperses the gas in the outer disk on a timescale of a few 10 yr. Once the outer part of the disk has vanished, the entire gaseous disk is photoevaporated on a very short timescale (∼10 yr) and only a small, dusty disk consisting of large grains remains. Published by Astronomy & Astrophysics (Vol. 497, p, 117) Probing the Age and Structure of the Nearby Very Young Open Clusters NGC 2244 and 2239 C. Bonatto and E. Bica 1 Departamento de Astronomia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500, Porto Alegre 91501-970, RS, Brazil E-mail contact: charles at if.ufrgs.br

Herbig-Haro jets are commonly thought of as homogeneous beams of plasma traveling at hypersonic velocities. Structure within jet beams is often attributed to periodic or "pulsed" variations of conditions at the jet source. Simulations based on this scenario result in knots extending across the jet diameter. Observations and recent high energy density laboratory experiments shed new light on structures below this scale and indicate they may be important for understanding the fundamentals of jet dynamics. In this paper, we offer an alternative to "pulsed" models of protostellar jets. Using direct numerical simulations we explore the possibility that jets are chains of subradial clumps propagating through a moving interclump medium. Our models explore an idealization of this scenario by injecting small (r < rjet), dense (ρ>ρjet) spheres embedded in an otherwise smooth interclump jet flow. The spheres are initialized with velocities differing from the jet velocity by ∼15%. We find that the consequences of shifting from homogeneous to heterogeneous flows are significant as clumps interact with each other and with the interclump medium in a variety of ways. Structures which mimic what is expected from pulsed-jet models can form, as can be previously unseen, "subradial" behaviors including backward facing bow shocks and off-axis working surfaces. While these small-scale structures have not been seen before in simulation studies, they are found in high-resolution jet observations. We discuss implications of our simulations for the interpretation of protostellar jets with regard to characterization of knots by a "lifetime" or "velocity history" approach as well as linking observed structures with central engines which produce the jets.

A description is given of the algorithms implemented in the AstroBEAR adaptive mesh-refinement code for ideal magnetohydrodynamics. The code provides several high-resolution shock-capturing schemes which are constructed to maintain conserved quantities of the flow in a finite-volume sense. Divergence-free magnetic field topologies are maintained to machine precision by collating the components of the magnetic field on a cell-interface staggered grid and utilizing the constrained transport approach for integrating the induction equations. The maintenance of magnetic field topologies on adaptive grids is achieved using prolongation and restriction operators which preserve the divergence and curl of the magnetic field across collocated grids of different resolutions. The robustness and correctness of the code is demonstrated by comparing the numerical solution of various tests with analytical solutions or previously published numerical solutions obtained by other codes.

In this paper we explore the relationship between protostellar outflows and turbulence in molecular clouds. Using 3-D numerical simulations we focus on the hydrodynamics of multiple outflows interacting within a parsec scale volume. We explore the extent to which transient outflows injecting directed energy and momentum into a sub-volume of a molecular cloud can be converted into random turbulent motions. We show that turbulence can readily be sustained by these interactions and show that it is possible to broadly characterize an effective driving scale of the outflows. We compare the velocity spectrum obtained in our studies to that of isotropically forced hydrodynamic turbulence finding that in outflow driven turbulence a power law is indeed achieved. However we find a steeper spectrum (beta ~ 3) is obtained in outflow driven turbulence models than in isotropically forced simulations (beta ~ 2). We discuss possible physical mechanisms responsible for these results as well and their implications for turbulence in molecular clouds where outflows will act in concert with other processes such as gravitational collapse.