EVOLUTION OF A SELF-GRAVITATING PROTOCLOUD WITH TURBULENCE

This paper studies the influence of turbulence generated by the motion of fragments formed during the collapse of self-gravitating molecular clouds. We investigate the dependence of the results upon the physical parameters, which describe turbulence in the frame of the so called "semi-empirical" model (see Heisenberg 1948; and von Weizsacker 1948). The results are given for three values of the gas cloud mass (10(7), 10(4), and 800 M.). The presence of turbulence with consequent dissipation is shown to raise often appreciably the gas temperature in massive clouds after one collapse time. Due to this heating, the gas radius and the luminosity in fragmenting clouds are much larger than in the non-turbulent case. On the contrary, the mass function is only slightly affected by turbulence, as most of the fragments are born before one collapse time.