Interstellar Turbulence and Star Formation

Abstract

We provide a brief overview of recent advances and outstanding issues in simulations of interstellar turbulence, including isothermal models for interior structure of molecular clouds and larger-scale multiphase models designed to simulate the formation of molecular clouds. We show how self-organization in highly compressible magnetized turbulence in the multiphase ISM can be exploited in simple numerical models to generate realistic initial conditions for star formation.Comment: 8 pages, 5 color figures; submitted to Proceedings of IAU Symposium 270 "Computational Star Formation" held in Barcelona, May 31 - June 4, 201