Related papers: Molecules in galaxies
We present a review of observational studies of high-mass star formation, based mainly on our own research. It includes surveys of high-mass star-forming regions in various molecular lines and in continuum, investigations of filamentary…
In the Milky Way and other main-sequence galaxies, stars form exclusively in molecular gas, which is traced by CO emission. However, low metallicity dwarf galaxies are often `CO-dark' in the sense that CO emission is not observable even at…
The late stages of stellar evolution from asymptotic giant branch stars to planetary nebulae are now known to be an active phase of molecular synthesis. Over 80 gas-phase molecules have been detected through rotational transitions in the…
Molecular absorption lines measured along the line of sight of distant quasars are important probes of the gas evolution in galaxies as a function of redshift. A review is made of the handful of molecular absorbing systems studied so far,…
With an increased appreciation for the role of gas in galaxy evolution, there is renewed interest in measuring gas masses for galaxies. I review some of the basic concepts in using CO to determine molecular masses, and discuss some of the…
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…
A hot phase of the interstellar medium has now been detected and studied in several objects through its X-ray emission. A proper assessment of its characteristics is relevant for our understanding of several aspects of galaxy properties,…
The increasing number of observations towards different environments in the Milky Way, as well as theoretical and experimental works, are improving our knowledge of the astrochemical processes in the interstellar medium (ISM). In this…
ALMA will be able to detect a broad spectrum of molecular lines in galaxies. Current aperture synthesis observations indicate that the molecular line emission from galaxies is remarkably variable, even on kpc scales. Imaging spectroscopy at…
Stars in galaxies form in giant molecular clouds that coalesce when the atomic hydrogen is converted into molecules. There are currently two dominant models for what property of the galactic disk determines its molecular fraction: either…
To study large-scale structure in the Universe a full census of the contents are required. This is even more important when the processes of galaxy formation are being investigated. In the last year the population of distant galaxies that…
Filaments are a ubiquitous morphological feature of the molecular interstellar medium and are identified as sites of star formation. In recent years, more than 100 large-scale filaments (with a length $>10$\,pc) have been observed in the…
Neutral-atomic and molecular outflows are a common occurrence in galaxies, near and far. They operate over the full extent of their galaxy hosts, from the innermost regions of galactic nuclei to the outermost reaches of galaxy halos. They…
This article gives an overview of the constitution, physical conditions and observables of dust in the interstellar medium of nearby galaxies. We first review the macroscopic, spatial distribution of dust in these objects, and its…
Nearby galaxies exhibit a variety of structures, including central rings, similar to the MW Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). These rings are common in barred galaxies and can be gas-rich and highly star-forming. We aim to study molecular gas…
We present new mm interferometric and optical integral-field unit (IFU) observations and construct a sample of 12 E and S0 galaxies with molecular gas which have both CO and optical maps. The galaxies contain 2 x 10^7 to 5 x 10^9 M\odot of…
The relative distribution of molecular gas and star formation in galaxies gives insight into the physical processes and timescales of the cycle between gas and stars. In this work, we track the relative spatial configuration of CO and…
The processes regulating star formation in galaxies are thought to act across a hierarchy of spatial scales. To connect extragalactic star formation relations from global and kpc-scale measurements to recent cloud-scale resolution studies,…
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…
In this chapter, we give an overview of the major components of the interstellar medium (ISM) in galaxies at a level appropriate for upper level undergraduates or beginning graduate students. We discuss the major constituents of the the ISM…