Shock-driven implosion of interstellar gas clouds and star formation.

Two-dimensional hydrodynamical calculations are presented to demonstrate a mechanism of star formation which, within the context of the spiral density wave theory, can explain the narrowness of the spiral arms of galaxies delineated by the classic spiral tracers: the bright, young stars and their associated H II regions. The implosion of a standard interstellar cloud has been followed numerically after it encounters a shock in the intercloud medium. Parameters have been chosen to represent a cloud flowing into a spiral arm which is delineated by a shock in the interstellar gas. Although this work is motivated by spiral wave theory, the results should also be indicative of the evolution of a cloud struck, for example, by a supernova shock.