No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2016
A number of authors (Reddish, 1968, 1969, Reddish and Wickramasinghe 1969) have stressed the importance for star formation of the role of condensation of H2, onto solid grains inside the cool dark regions of a large interstellar cloud. However, although the thermodynamic consequences of the existence of grains have been extensively studied, the dynamical implications have received little attention. Solid grains of course do not possess a thermal pressure as their gaseous counterpart does, neither do they directly experience the magnetic fields which thread the ions and electrons of the gas cloud. The grains therefore, as soon as they are formed, are free to fall toward their common centre of mass, relatively unrestricted by the constraints on the gas cloud.