Speaker: Prof. Telemachos Ch. Mouschovias
University of California, Berkeley

Title: THE BIRTH OF STARS: CHILDREN OF GRAVITY AND COSMIC MAGNETISM

Abstract:
Evidence shows that magnetic fields are not just important, but crucial to star
formation. In fact, if it were not for the action of magnetic fields, not even massive
interstellar clouds, the sites of star formation, could form. I'll discuss the basic
physics of both cloud formation and star formation and summarize the latest work on the
subjects. The proper theoretical description is within the realm of
nonlocal-thermodynamic-equilibrium  multifluid magnetohydrodynamics, but the results can
be understood without reference to complicated mathematics or advanced physics. For
densities above about 10^11 cm^-3, radiative transfer must also be included. Some myths
about the role and "universality" of turbulence will also be dispelled, by re-examining
critically the underlying observational evidence. Key predictions of the magnetic theory
of star formation will be compared to observations, including the "holy grail" of star
formation, the protostellar mass function, which has recently been derived simply and
analytically.