On the Formation and evolution of prestellar cores

Sumedh Anathpindika

Detailed observations of typical star-forming regions in different bands of sub-mm wavelengths have revealed a plethora of dense filamentary structure. Smaller potential star-forming clumps of molecular gas, better known as prestellar cores, or simply cores, usually appear embedded in such filaments. Consequently, the recent past has seen a considerable investment of computational efforts towards reconciling the filamentary nature of typical star-forming clouds. Furthermore, it appears, only a small fraction of these cores eventually spawn stars rendering the process of star-formation terribly inefficient.
In this talk, I will - (1) briefly review our current understanding about star-formation, and (2) present results from some of my work on the formation of prestellar cores and the conditions under which a core is likely to become protostellar, i.e., collapse to begin forming star/s.