Related papers: Theory of Star Formation
We investigate the triggering of star formation in clouds that form in Galactic scale flows as the ISM passes through spiral shocks. We use the Lagrangian nature of SPH simulations to trace how the star forming gas is gathered into…
Recent studies of the nearest star-forming clouds of the Galaxy at submillimeter wavelengths with the Herschel Space Observatory have provided us with unprecedented images of the initial conditions and early phases of the star formation…
Young galaxies are clumpy, gas-rich, and highly turbulent. Star formation appears to occur by gravitational instabilities in galactic disks. The high dispersion makes the clumps massive and the disks thick. The star formation rate should be…
Star formation, together with the associated chemical and energy feedback, is one of the most important processes in galaxy evolution. The star formation activity in galaxies defines and affects many of their fundamental properties, such as…
Studies of evolved massive stars indicate that they form in a clustered mode. During the earliest evolutionary stages, these regions are embedded within their natal cores. Here, we show high-spatial-resolution interferometric dust continuum…
Magnetic stresses collimate protostellar winds into a common distribution of force with angle. Sweeping into the ambient medium, such winds drive bipolar molecular outflows whose properties are insensitive to the distribution of ambient gas…
A review on current observations of high-mass star formation is given, with a little bit of theoretical background. Particular emphasis is given to the, in my opinion, most important observations to put strong constraints on models of…
Recently, we have shown that if the ISM is governed by super-sonic turbulent flows, the excursion-set formalism can be used to calculate the statistics of self-gravitating objects over a wide range of scales. On the largest self-gravitating…
Galactic star formation scaling relations show increased scatter from kpc to sub-kpc scales. Investigating this scatter may hold important clues to how the star formation process evolves in time and space. Here, we combine different…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it is an important component of the interstellar medium and plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies, the formation of stars and…
We examine the growth of the stellar content of galaxies from z=3-0 in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations incorporating parameterised galactic outflows. Without outflows, galaxies overproduce stellar masses (M*) and star formation rates…
The turbulent motion within molecular clouds is a key factor controlling star formation. Turbulence supports molecular cloud cores from evolving to gravitational collapse and hence sets a lower bound on the size of molecular cloud cores in…
(Abridged) The formation of molecular clouds (MCs) from the diffuse interstellar gas appears to be a necessary step for star formation, as young stars invariably occur within them. However, the mechanisms controlling the formation of MCs…
Interstellar space is filled with a dilute mixture of charged particles, atoms, molecules and dust grains, called the interstellar medium (ISM). Understanding its physical properties and dynamical behavior is of pivotal importance to many…
I review (1) Physics of Star Formation & Open Questions; (2) Structure & Dynamics of Star-Forming Clouds & Young Clusters; (3) Star Formation Rates: Observations & Theoretical Implications.
Star formation is a key process that governs the baryon cycle within galaxies, however, the question of how it controls their growth remains elusive due to modeling uncertainties. To understand the impact of star formation models on galaxy…
We review the physics of star formation, and its links with the state of the ISM in galaxies. Current obervations indicate that the preferred mode of star formation is clustered. Given that OB associations provide the dominant energy input…
Stars generally form faster than the ambipolar diffusion time, suggesting that several processes short circuit the delay and promote a rapid collapse. These processes are considered here, including turbulence compression in the outer parts…
In this paper we address the question whether star formation is driven by local processes or the large scale environment. To do so, we investigate star formation in collisional debris where the gravitational potential well and velocity…
We present a new model to describe the star formation process in galaxies, which includes the description of the different gas phases -- molecular, atomic, and ionized -- together with its metal content. The model, which will be coupled to…