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Cited by 556

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Photoionization-regulated star formation and the structure of molecular clouds

McKee, Christopher F.·1989·The Astrophysical Journal
DOI 10.1086/167950
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Abstract

A model for the rate of low-mass star formation in Galactic molecular clouds and for the influence of this star formation on the structure and evolution of the clouds is presented. The rate of energy injection by newly formed stars is estimated, and the effect of this energy injection on the size of the cloud is determined. It is shown that the observed rate of star formation appears adequate to support the observed clouds against gravitational collapse. The rate of photoionization-regulated star formation is estimated and it is shown to be in agreement with estimates of the observed rate of star formation if the observed molecular cloud parameters are used. The mean cloud extinction and the Galactic star formation rate per unit mass of molecular gas are predicted theoretically from the condition that photionization-regulated star formation be in equilibrium. A simple model for the evolution of isolated molecular clouds is developed.

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Metadata

Authors
McKee, C. F.
Venue
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Published
1989-10
Volume
345
Pages
782
ISSN
  • 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
  • 1538-4357
DOI
10.1086/167950
OpenAlex
W2000672249
Cited by
556
References
0
FWCI
7.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Photoionization-regulated star formation and the structure of molecular clouds. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1086/167950
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McKee, C. F. (1989). Photoionization-regulated star formation and the structure of molecular clouds. The Astrophysical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1086/167950

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.