James Wurster
Patrick Hennebelle
Kengo Tomida
Anna Rosen4,5- 1Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
- 2AIM, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- 3Astronomical Institute, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
- 4Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Department of Physics, School of Physical Sciences, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
- 5San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, United States
Editorial on the Research Topic
Star formation: numerical simulations and what they teach us
Star formation is a messy and chaotic mechanism that involves several physical processes including gravity, magnetic fields, turbulence, and stellar feedback. The interplay of the processes inherent to star formation are often interdependent and entangled, thereby hindering the acceptance of a universal theory of star formation. Therefore, it is challenging to determine the relative importance of the various processes, especially when this importance is environment-dependent.
State-of-the-art telescopes are providing ground-breaking observations of star-forming regions and young stellar objects with unprecedented detail. Such observations have shed light on how these various physical processes work in concert to lead to star formation. Simultaneously, state-of-the-art numerical simulations are greatly advancing star formation theory on all scales—from the birth of isolated stars to the formation and early evolution of entire star clusters. These simulations are providing detailed explanations of the effects of the various physical processes and attempting to decouple their effects. On their own and also by comparing to observations, numerical studies are greatly advancing star formation theory.
Author contributions
JW: Writing–original draft. PH: Writing–review and editing. KT: Writing–review and editing. AR: Writing–review and editing.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Keywords: numerical methods, molecular clouds—core structure—star formation, molecular cloudss—stars: formation, protoplanetary accretion disc, magnetohy drodynamics (MHD)
Citation: Wurster J, Hennebelle P, Tomida K and Rosen A (2024) Editorial: Star formation: numerical simulations and what they teach us. Front. Astron. Space Sci. 11:1462935. doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1462935
Received: 10 July 2024; Accepted: 16 July 2024;
Published: 25 July 2024.
Edited and reviewed by:
Scott William McIntosh, National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), United StatesCopyright © 2024 Wurster, Hennebelle, Tomida and Rosen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: James Wurster, james.wurster.astro@gmail.com