Star Formation in Galaxies

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Tohline will investigate the collapse of gas clouds to form stars, using a supercomputer and extensive imaging of the computed gas clouds. He will start the computed collapse either from a series of newly discovered mathematical solutions for rotating clouds or from a set of solutions for massive accretion disks. He will trace the development of instabilities, especially those that cause fission into smaller pieces. Stars are known to form by the collapse of small, dense interstellar clouds. Rotation of the clouds is known to be important, in part because most stars occur in binary pairs. But the actual collapse of rotating clouds has not been traced. Will the cloud split into pieces? How fast will the resulting stars rotate? Tohline will use a supercomputer to investigate these questions and will use images of the computed clouds to determine which solutions most resemble those in nature.