Related papers: Spontaneous and Stimulated Star Formation in Galax…
The Local Group hosts a number of star-forming dwarf galaxies that show evidence of periods of little to no star formation. We use a suite of cosmological simulations to study how star formation is reignited in such galaxies. We focus on…
We study global star formation thresholds in the outer parts of galaxies by investigating the stability of disk galaxies embedded in dark halos. The disks are self-gravitating, contain metals and dust, and are exposed to UV radiation. We…
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…
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…
We study the star formation activity of nearby galaxies with bars using a sample of late-type galaxies at 0.02$\leq z \leq$ 0.05489 and $M_r <-19.5$ from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We compare the physical properties of strongly and…
Star formation in galaxies relies on the availability of cold, dense gas, which, in turn, relies on factors internal and external to the galaxies. In order to provide a simple model for how star formation is regulated by various physical…
We explore various instability models for the onset of star formation in irregular galaxies. Critical gas densities are calculated for gravitational instabilities with a thin, pure-gas disk, and with a thick disk composed of gas and a…
Recent wide-field imaging observations of the X-ray luminous cluster RDCSJ1252.9-2927 at z=1.24 uncovered several galaxy groups that appear to be embedded in filamentary structure extending from the cluster core. We make a spectroscopic…
(Abridged). We model gravitational instability in a wide range of isolated disk galaxies, using GADGET, a three-dimensional, smoothed particle hydrodynamics code. The model galaxies include a dark matter halo and a disk of stars and…
The effect of galaxy interactions on star formation has been investigated using Data Release 1 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Both the imaging and spectroscopy data products have been used to construct a catalogue of nearest…
(Abridged) We have used optical spectroscopy to investigate the radio- selected active galaxy populations in a sample of 20 nearby Abell clusters. The spectra were used to characterize the galaxies as AGN or galaxies forming stars at rates…
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.…
The observed discrete multiple stellar populations and internal abundance spreads in r- and s-process elements within globular clusters (GCs) have been suggested to be explained self-consistently by discrete star formation events over a…
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…
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…
It is an obvious statement that all the galaxies we see today in and around our Local Group have been forming and evolving for a significant fraction of the age of the Universe. It is not a great leap of logic to further state that the…
We report on a study of tidally triggered star formation in galaxies, based on spectroscopic/photometric observations in the optical/near-IR of a magnitude limited sample of 59 systems of interacting and merging galaxies and a comparison…
High-redshift star-forming galaxies have very different morphologies compared to nearby ones. Indeed, they are often dominated by bright star-forming structures of masses up to $10^{8-9}$ $\mathrm{M}_\odot$ dubbed {\guillemotleft}giant…
High spatial and spectral resolution observations of the atomic interstellar medium in nearby dwarf galaxies reveal evidence for warm and cold neutral gas, just like the phases in our own Galaxy. The cold or quiescent phase (about 20% of…
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…