The Astrophysical Journal · 2014 · 173 citations · 222 references
Powerful jets and outflows are launched from the protostellar disks around\nnewborn stars. These outflows carry enough mass and momentum to transform the\nstructure of their parent molecular cloud and to potentially control star\nformation itself. Despite their importance, we have not been able to fully\nquantify the impact of jets and outflows during the formation of a star\ncluster. The main problem lies in limited computing power. We would have to\nresolve the magnetic jet-launching mechanism close to the protostar and at the\nsame time follow the evolution of a parsec-size cloud for a million years.\nCurrent computer power and codes fall orders of magnitude short of achieving\nthis. In order to overcome this problem, we implement a subgrid-scale (SGS)\nmodel for launching jets and outflows, which demonstrably converges and\nreproduces the mass, linear and angular momentum transfer, and the speed of\nreal jets, with ~ 1000 times lower resolution than would be required without\nSGS model. We apply the new SGS model to turbulent, magnetized star cluster\nformation and show that jets and outflows (1) eject about 1/4 of their parent\nmolecular clump in high-speed jets, quickly reaching distances of more than a\nparsec, (2) reduce the star formation rate by about a factor of two, and (3)\nlead to the formation of ~ 1.5 times as many stars compared to the no-outflow\ncase. Most importantly, we find that jets and outflows reduce the average star\nmass by a factor of ~ 3 and may thus be essential for understanding the\ncharacteristic mass of the stellar initial mass function.\n
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V. Mannings · Icarus · 2000 · 4K citations
Embedded Clusters in Molecular Clouds
Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · 2003 · 2.8K citations · Full text