%0 Generic
%A Girichidis, Philipp
%D 2012
%F heidok:13561
%K initial conditions , star formation , turbulence , star cluster , hydrodynamics
%R 10.11588/heidok.00013561
%T Importance of the initial conditions for star formation
%U https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/13561/
%X This thesis investigates the impact of the initial conditions on present-day star formation. Using numerical simulations, we follow the gravitational collapse of dense molecular clouds under different initial turbulent motions and initial density distributions. Our analysis focuses on the morphology of the cloud, the time and location of the formation of stars, the energetics during the collapse, the formation of clusters including their internal structure, their accretion behaviour as well as their mass distribution. The morphology of the cloud and the total number of stars are strongly influenced by the initial type of turbulence and the initial density profile. The results range from almost unperturbed cores with a single star to strongly filamentary cores with hundreds of stars in disconnected clusters. The internal structure of protostellar clusters is systematically but not significantly influenced by the initial conditions. Concerning the accretion rates as well as the dynamical interactions of stars within the clusters, we observe a fairly uniform behaviour, not reflecting the large variations in the initial conditions. The simulations presented in this thesis were performed using the grid-based code FLASH, developed mainly at the University of Chicago.