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From Large-Scale Molecular Clouds To Filaments And Cores : Unveiling The Role Of The Magnetic Fields In Star Formation, Sayantan Auddy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I present a comprehensive study of the role of strong magnetic fields in characterizing the structure of molecular clouds. We run three-dimensional turbulent non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations (with ambipolar diffusion) to see the effect of magnetic fields on the evolution of the column density probability distribution function (PDF). Our results indicate a systematic dependence of the column density PDF of molecular clouds on magnetic field strength and turbulence, with observationally distinguishable outcomes between supercritical (gravity dominated) and subcritical (magnetic field dominated) initial conditions. We find that most cases develop a direct power-law PDF, and only the subcritical clouds with turbulence are …