Related papers: Star Formation Thresholds
Regions of disc galaxies with widespread star formation tend to be both gravitationally unstable and self-shielded against ionizing radiation, whereas extended outer discs with little or no star formation tend to be stable and unshielded on…
Most gas in giant molecular clouds is relatively low-density and forms star inefficiently, converting only a small fraction of its mass to stars per dynamical time. However, star formation models generally predict the existence of a…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
Current models of galaxy evolution suggest that feedback from active galactic nuclei is needed to explain the high-luminosity cutoff in the galaxy luminosity function. Exactly how an AGN outflow couples with the ambient medium and…
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…
The gas mass fraction (fg) of spiral galaxies is strongly correlated with the central surface brightness of their disks. There exist many dim galaxies with long gas consumption time scales and fg > 0.5. This resolves the gas consumption…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host…
We report the first results of a detailed study of the star formation law in a sample of 32 nearby spiral galaxies with well-measured rotation curves, HI and H$_2$ (as traced by CO) surface density profiles, and new \Ha CCD photometry. Our…
Thermal instability (TI) is a trigger mechanism, which can explain the formation of small condensations through some regions of the interstellar clouds. The instability criterion for flat geometry approximations has been investigated in…
We develop a model for the outer gravitationally unstable regions of accretion disks around massive black holes, for primeval or solar abundances. First we study star formation and evolution in a purely gaseous marginally unstable disk, and…
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
The physics of stars, their workings and their evolution, is a goldmine of problems in statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. We discuss many examples that illustrate the possibility of deepening student's knowledge of statistical…
We examine the origin of clustercentric gradients in the star formation rates and colors of rich cluster galaxies within the context of a simple model where clusters are built through the ongoing accretion of field galaxies. The model…
We discuss the stability of galactic disks in which the energy of interstellar clouds is gained in encounters with expanding supernova remnants and lost in inelastic collisions. Energy gain and loss processes introduce a phase difference…
Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer in…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
The gas-stars instability criterion for infinitesimally thin disc was applied to the galaxy NGC 628. Instead of using the azimuthally averaged profiles of data the maps of the gas surface densities (THINGS, HERACLES), of the velocity…
The observed rapid onset of star formation in molecular clouds requires rapid formation of dense fragments which can collapse individually before being overtaken by global gravitationally-driven flows. Many previous investigations have…
To understand the formation of stellar groups, one must first document carefully the birth pattern within real clusters and associations. In this study of Taurus-Auriga, we combine pre-main-sequence ages from our own evolutionary tracks…