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Toward a New Paradigm of Star Formation:
Does Nature Abhor a Singular Isothermal Sphere? Brenda Matthews UC Berkeley abstract The quest to understand the process of star formation has expanded greatly over the past decade. At this summer's IAU symposium, more speakers discussed what conditions precluded and regulated star formation than presented measurements of radial profiles or mass accretion rates. This represents a shift in the language and scale of the problem of star formation. The field has evolved to ask questions on much broader scales than even five years ago. Observations reveal that the elegant simple picture of the singular isothermal sphere collapse model is not seen in real molecular clouds. Increasing numbers of observations show that the conditions for collapse are not easy to define, and identification of the origin of the initial mass function of stars and the source of multiple star systems remain unclear. I will discuss the current state of multi-scale studies of star-forming clouds and cores, including turbulence and magnetic fields, and the difference between starless and pre-stellar cores. I will then attempt to identify what are the most critical missing pieces to the star formation puzzle and how the next generation of telescopes and instrumentation could provide the answers. |