Low-Mass Versus High-Mass Star Formation

Abstract

Structures like the clumps identified in the CO maps of the Rosette Molecular Cloud and the dense cores such as those in B5, a cluster of cores and young low-mass stars, are key to considerations of star formation. Whether star formation is a self-inducing process or one that causes itself to turn off depends greatly on whether the responses of the interclump and intercore media to young stars cause the collapse of clumps or cores to be faster than their ablation. We present a naive introduction to the lengthscales over which such responses are significant, mention ways in which the responses might induce collapse, review some of the little that is known of how flows of media around clumps and cores ablate them, and then return to the issue of the lengthscales over which such responses are significant by considering the global properties of mass-loaded flows in clumpy star forming regions.