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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
Interstellar clouds are thought to undergo a rapid phase of collapse in the process of contracting to form stars. Break-up during this collapse phase is termed fragmentation. Computer codes capable of calculating the hydrodynamics of cloud collapse in three spatial dimensions have been used to study the fragmentation process. Fragmentation into binary or multiple protostellar systems is the preferred outcome of collapse; only very slowly rotating, high thermal energy clouds, or clouds starting from power-law initial density profiles, avoid fragmentation and form single stars.