Related papers: Large-Scale Gravitational Instability and Star For…
Gravitational instability is one of considerable mechanisms to explain the formation of giant planets. We study the gravitational stability for the protoplanetary disks around a protostar. The temperature and Toomre's Q-value are calculated…
All stars are born in molecular clouds, and most in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), which thus set the star formation activity of galaxies. We first review their observed properties, including measures of mass surface density, Sigma, and…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
The galactic tidal interaction is a possible mechanism to trigger the active star formation in galaxies. Recent analyses using the Hi data in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) proposed that the tidally driven colliding HI flows, induced by…
The canonical theory for planet formation in circumstellar disks proposes that planets are grown from initially much smaller seeds. The long-considered alternative theory proposes that giant protoplanets can be formed directly from…
The empirical laws of star formation suggest that galactic-scale gravity is involved, but they do not identify the actual triggering mechanisms for clusters in the final stages. Many other triggering processes satisfy the empirical laws…
Star formation is enhanced in spiral arms because of a combination of orbit crowding, cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities. The characteristic mass for the instability is 10^7 Msun in gas and 10^5 Msun in stars, and the…
Despite their close proximity, the complex interplay between the two Magellanic Clouds, the Milky Way, and the resulting tidal features, is still poorly understood. Recent studies have shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has a very…
We present a general star formation law where star formation rate depends upon efficiency $\alpha$, timescale $\tau$ of star formation, gas component $\sigma_{g}$ of surface mass density and a real exponent $n$. A given exponent $n$…
Understanding the star formation process is central to much of modern astrophysics. For several decades it has been thought that stellar birth is primarily controlled by the interplay between gravity and magnetostatic support, modulated by…
We study the galactic-scale triggering of star formation. We find that the largest mass-scale not stabilized by rotation, a well defined quantity in a rotating system and with clear dynamical meaning, strongly correlates with the star…
Gravitational instabilities play a primary role in shaping the clumpy structure and powering the star formation activity of gas-rich high-redshift galaxies. Here we analyse the stability of such systems, focusing on the size and mass ranges…
One of the present concepts for the onset of massive star formation is the Kennicutt criterion. This relates the onset of massive star formation to a general gravitational instability of the gas disks of spiral galaxies. It is often…
We perform a systematic study of evolutionary stages and stellar masses of young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to investigate properties of star formation of the galaxy. There are 4825 sources in our YSO sample,…
We present an analysis of the spatial distribution of various stellar populations within the Large Magellanic Cloud. We combine mid-infrared selected young stellar objects, optically selected samples with mean ages between ~9 and ~1000 Myr,…
Growth rates for gravitational instabilities in a thick disk of gas and stars are determined for a turbulent gas that dissipates on the local crossing time. The scale heights are derived from vertical equilibrium. The accuracy of the usual…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…
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…
Star formation depends on the available gaseous "fuel" as well as galactic environment, with higher specific star formation rates where gas is predominantly molecular and where stellar (and dark matter) densities are higher. The partition…
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…