  We study the effect that the dark matter background (DMB) has on the
gravitational energy content and, in general, on the star formation efficiency
of a molecular cloud (MC). We first analyze the effect that a dark matter halo,
described by the Navarro et al. (1996) density profile, has on the energy
budget of a spherical, homogeneous, cloud located at different distances from
the halo center. We found that MCs located in the innermost regions of a
massive galaxy can feel a contraction force greater than their self-gravity due
to the incorporation of the potential of the galaxy's dark matter halo. We also
calculated analytically the gravitational perturbation that a MC produces over
a uniform DMB (uniform at the scales of a MC) and how this perturbation will
affect the evolution of the MC itself. The study shows that the star formation
in a MC will be considerably enhanced if the cloud is located in a dense and
low velocity dark matter environment. We confirm our results by measuring the
star formation efficiency in numerical simulations of the formation and
evolution of MCs within different DMBs. Our study indicates that there are
situations where the dark matter's gravitational contribution to the evolution
of the molecular clouds should not be neglected.
