The role of the magnetic field in the process of star formation

by Dr Εύα Ντορμούση (Marie Curie fellow, FORTH/University of Crete)

Friday 13 Dec 2019, 13:00 → 15:00 Europe/Athens

Abstract:

In this talk, I will explore the mystery that surrounds the role of magnetization in the process of star formation, from the creation of dense gas to the fragmentation of a olecular cloud into cores.

In numerical simulations of colliding supershells, magnetization suppresses the thermal instability.  This delay in the formation of cold gas can have a crucial effect on the star-forming properties of a galaxy. On smaller scales, numerical models of molecular cloud turbulence show dramatically different behavior when they include magnetic fields. We would expect these differences to lead to very different distributions of core properties. However, in models of molecular cloud collapse, we find that structures dominated by the gravitational contraction in models that include magnetization bear only small differences to those that do not.

Are our models representative of the actual, physical initial conditions for molecular cloud collapse? This surprising result demands a wider exploration of the role of agnetization in star formation, which will be the basis for a new discussion on the universality of star formation