GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE AND FRAGMENTATION OF MOLECULAR CLOUD CORES

The detected multiplicity of main-sequence and pre-main-sequence stars along with the emerging evidence for binary and multiple protostars, imply that stars may ultimately form by fragmentation of collapsing molecular cloud cores. These discoveries, coupled with recent observational knowledge of the structure of dense cloud cores and of the properties of young binary stars, provide serious constraints to the theory of star formation. Most theoretical progress in the field of star formation is largely based on numerical calculations of the early collapse and fragmentation of protostellar clouds. Although these models have been quite successful at predicting the formation of binary protostars, a direct comparison between theory and observations has not yet been established. The results of recent observations as well as of early and recent analytic and numerical models, on which the present theory of star formation is based, are reviewed here in a self-consistent manner.