Magnetically Regulated Star Formation in Turbulent Clouds

We investigate numerically the combined effects of supersonic turbulence, strong magnetic fields, and ambipolar diffusion on cloud evolution leading to star formation. We find that in clouds that are initially magnetically subcritical, supersonic turbulence can speed up star formation, through enhanced ambipolar diffusion in shocks. The speedup overcomes a major objection to the standard scenario of low-mass star formation involving ambipolar diffusion, since the diffusion timescale at the average density of a molecular cloud is typically longer than the cloud lifetime. At the same time, the strong magnetic field can prevent the large-scale supersonic turbulence from converting most of the cloud mass into stars in one (short) turbulence crossing time and thus alleviate the high efficiency problem associated with the turbulence-controlled picture for low-mass star formation. We propose that relatively rapid but inefficient star formation results from supersonic collisions of somewhat subcritical gas in strongly magnetized turbulent clouds. The salient features of this shock-accelerated, ambipolar diffusion-regulated scenario are demonstrated with numerical experiments.