On the Coagulation and Size Distribution of Pressure Confined Cores
  Observations of the Pipe Nebula have led to the discovery of dense starless
cores. The mass of most cores is too small for their self gravity to hold them
together. Instead, they are thought to be pressure confined. The observed dense
cores' mass function (CMF) matches well with the initial mass function (IMF) of
stars in young clusters. Similar CMF's are observed in other star forming
regions such as the Aquila Nebula, albeit with some dispersion. The shape of
these CMF provides important clues to the competing physical processes which
lead to star formation and its feedback on the interstellar media. In this
paper, we investigate the dynamical origin of the the mass function of starless
cores which are confined by a warm, less dense medium. We consider the
coagulation between the cold cores and their ablation due to Kelvin-Helmholtz
instability induced by their relative motion through the warm medium. We are
able to reproduce the observed CMF among the starless cores in the Pipe nebula.
Our results indicate that in environment similar to the Pipe nebula: 1) before
the onset of their gravitational collapse, the mass distribution of the
progenitor cores is similar to that of the young stars, 2) the observed CMF is
a robust consequence of dynamical equilibrium between the coagulation and
ablation of cores, and 3) a break in the slope of the CMF is due to the
enhancement of collisional cross section and suppression of ablation for cores
with masses larger than the cores' Bonnor-Ebert mass.
