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Initial Conditions for Star Formation: A Physical Description of the Filamentary ISM

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arxiv 2203.09562 v1 pith:S47T3DNO submitted 2022-03-17 astro-ph.GA

classification astro-ph.GA
keywords filamentaryformationstructuresfilamentsevolutionpropertiescensusduring
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The interstellar medium contains filamentary structure over a wide range of scales. Understanding the role of this structure, both as a conduit of gas across the scales and a diagnostic tool of local physics, is a major focus of star formation studies. We review recent progress in studying filamentary structure in the ISM, interpreting its properties in terms of physical processes, and exploring formation and evolution scenarios. We include structures from galactic-scale filaments to tenth-of-a-parsec scale filaments, comprising both molecular and atomic structures, from both observational and theoretical perspectives. In addition to the literature overview, we assemble a large amount of catalogue data from different surveys and provide the most comprehensive census of filamentary structures to date. Our census consists of 22 803 filamentary structures, facilitating a holistic perspective and new insights. We use our census to conduct a meta-analysis, leading to a description of filament properties over four orders of magnitudes in length and eight in mass. Our analysis emphasises the hierarchical and dynamical nature of filamentary structures. Filaments do not live in isolation, nor they generally resemble static structures close to equilibrium. We propose that accretion during filament formation and evolution sets some of the key scaling properties of filaments. This highlights the role of accretion during filament formation and evolution and also in setting the initial conditions for star formation. Overall, the study of filamentary structures during the past decade has been observationally driven. While great progress has been made on measuring the basic properties of filaments, our understanding of their formation and evolution is clearly lacking. In this context, we identify a number of directions and questions we consider most pressing for the field.

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Cited by 11 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. OpenAlex reports about 39 citations worldwide. Full citation record

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    Cloud-fed ideal-MHD zoom-in simulations of nine young stars show discs are replenished on ~10,000-year timescales via surface-layer accretion and can be truncated by massive streamers.

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    In two Galactic filaments, N2H+ emission is uniform and traces the highest column densities, while HCN, HCO+, and 13CO vary between spiral arm and interarm, so dense gas line ratio changes reflect moderate-density gas.

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    Head-on collisions of 500 M⊙ clouds form hub-filament systems and short-lived bipolar HII regions whose appearance depends strongly on viewing angle, with secondary radio and mid-IR metrics that may flag CCC origins.

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    Sutra trains a U-Net on the union of DisPerSE and getsf skeletons to predict filament crest-likelihood maps and then filters and characterizes them with beam-scale Plummer fits.

  11. ALMA-IMF. XXI.: N$_2$H$^+$ kinematics in the G012.80 protocluster: Evidence for filament rotation and evolution

    astro-ph.GA 2025-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    In the G012.80 protocluster, N2H+ kinematics reveal one dense filament that is still rotating and another that has evolved toward collapse, indicating that star formation stages can coexist within a single protocluster.

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