Related papers: Large-Scale Gravitational Instability and Star For…
The role of gravitational instability-driven turbulence in determining the structure and evolution of disk galaxies, and the extent to which gravity rather than feedback can explain galaxy properties, remains an open question. To address…
Whether or not the initial star cluster mass function is established through a universal, galactocentric-distance-independent stochastic process, on the scales of individual galaxies, remains an unsolved problem. This debate has recently…
We investigate the gravitational instability of galactic discs, treating stars and cold interstellar gas as two distinct components, and taking into account the phenomenology of turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM), i.e. the…
Internal dynamical evolution can drive stellar systems into states of high central density. For many star clusters and galactic nuclei, the time scale on which this occurs is significantly less than the age of the universe. As a result,…
Like their lower mass siblings, massive protostars can be expected to: a) be surrounded by circumstellar disks and b) launch magnetically-driven jets and outflows. The disk formation and global evolution is thereby controlled by advection…
Observations of the interstellar medium are key to deciphering the physical processes regulating star formation in galaxies. However, observational uncertainties and detection limits can bias the interpretation unless carefully modeled.…
Mergers of gas-rich galaxies lead to gravitationally driven increases in gas pressure that can trigger intense bursts of star and cluster formation. Although star formation itself is clustered, most newborn stellar aggregates are unbound…
In about 40% of the Local Group galaxies star clusters have been detected so far, but the census is still incomplete. The properties of these clusters are briefly reviewed, and the impact of galaxy environment on the evolution and survival…
I review observational studies of the large-scale star formation process in nearby galaxies. A wealth of new multi-wavelength data provide an unprecedented view on the interplay of the interstellar medium and (young) stellar populations on…
MHD turbulence plays a central role in the physics of star-forming molecular clouds and the interstellar medium. I here show that MHD turbulence in molecular clouds must be driven to account for the observed supersonic motions in the…
Selected results from recent studies of star formation in galaxies at different stages of interaction are reviewed. Recent results from the Spitzer Space Telescope are highlighted. Ideas on how large-scale driving of star formation in…
Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ~100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local…
In this contribution I will present the current status of our project of stellar population analyses and spatial information of both Magellanic Clouds (MCs). The Magellanic Clouds - especially the LMC with its large size and small depth…
We compare atomic gas, molecular gas, and the recent star formation rate (SFR) inferred from H-alpha in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). By using infrared dust emission and local dust-to-gas ratios, we construct a map of molecular gas that…
We present the results from simulations of GMC formation in spiral galaxies. First we discuss cloud formation by cloud-cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities, arguing that the former is prevalent at lower galactic surface…
The origin of the observed morphological and kinematic substructure of young star forming regions is a matter of debate. We offer a new analysis of data from simulations of globally gravitationally collapsing clouds of progenitor gas to…
We first present chemodynamical simulations to investigate how stellar winds of massive stars influence early dynamical and chemical evolution of forming globular clusters (GCs). In our numerical models, GCs form in turbulent,high-density…
Planetesimal formation is one of the most important unsolved problems in planet formation theory. In particular, rocky planetesimal formation is difficult because silicate dust grains are easily broken when they collide. Recently, it has…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
In this paper we report a clustering analysis of upper main-sequence stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, using data from the VMC survey (the VISTA near-infrared YJKs survey of the Magellanic system). Young stellar structures are identified…