Gas flows colliding within molecular clouds produce regions of compressed gas and dust that are hydrodynamically unstable. Fragmentation of the compressed region produces clumps in the mass range 0.01 ≤ m ≤ 5.0 M_sun;, in time tb ≈ 5x10¹²s. Gravitational instability of the fragment distribution occurs on the time scale tc ≈ 10¹³s. The gravitational attraction of the clumps and the disk material can form protostars in the mass range 1.0 ≤ mf ≤ 65.0 M_sun;. The conditions for dynamical fragmentation to occur do not require that the overall molecular cloud be Jeans unstable, or even that it be collapsing; there must only be a source for the kinetic energy of the gas flows that interact. These results support the conclusion that the star formation process in molecular clouds can be triggered by high-velocity gas-flow interactions within molecular clouds.
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H. et al. (1986) studied this question.