Colloquium: Star Formation and ISM Dynamics

© CC-BY-SA-NC (Credit: Hutschenreuther & Enßlin 2020 and Reissl et al. in prep.)

Stars and star clusters form by gravitational collapse in regions of high density in the dynamically evolving magnetised multi-phase interstellar medium. The process of stellar birth is controlled by the intricate interplay between the self-gravity of the star-forming gas and various opposing agents, such as supersonic turbulence, magnetic fields, radiative feedback, cosmic rays, and gas pressure.

In this talk, I will discuss examples of recent progress and controversy, specifically, I will focus on current attempts to bring numerical simulations and theoretical models closer to the observational domain. In this context, I will report on the efforts in Heidelberg to model magnetic field evolution and generate synthetic polarisation and Faraday rotation maps for comparison with the observational data.

The image here shows one such comparison of the real (Hutschenreuther & Enßlin 2020) and synthetic Faraday RM sky (Reissl et al. in prep.)