We review current understanding of star formation, outlining an overall theoretical framework
and the observations that motivate it. A conception of star formation has emerged in which …

Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics.
However, a quantitative prediction of the star formation rate and the initial distribution of …

We present a unified description of the scenario of global hierarchical collapse (GHC). GHC
constitutes a flow regime of (non-homologous) collapses within collapses, in which all …

▪ Abstract Turbulence affects the structure and motions of nearly all temperature and density
regimes in the interstellar gas. This two-part review summarizes the observations, theory …

Context. Stars form in the cold dense cores of interstellar molecular clouds and the detailed
knowledge of the spectrum of masses of such cores is clearly a key for the understanding of …

We present results from high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of turbulent
interstellar gas that self-consistently follow its coupled thermal, chemical and dynamical …

The universality of interstellar turbulence is examined from observed structure functions of
27 giant molecular clouds and Monte Carlo modeling. We show that the structure functions …

We discuss the nature of the velocity dispersion versus size relation for molecular clouds. In
particular, we add to previous observational results showing that the velocity dispersions in …

Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the primary reservoirs of cold, star-forming molecular
gas in the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and thus any understanding of star formation must …

We compare the properties of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in M51 identified by the
Plateau de Bure Interferometer Whirlpool Arcsecond Survey with GMCs identified in wide …