Related papers: The Challenge of Modelling Galactic Disks
Galactic disks lie at the heart of many of the most pressing astrophysical puzzles. There are sophisticated kinetic theories that describe some aspects of galaxy disk dynamics, but extracting quantitative predictions from those theories has…
A timely combination of new theoretical ideas and observational discoveries has brought about significant advances in our understanding of cosmic evolution. Computer simulations have played a key role in these developments by providing the…
The theory of stellar evolution plays a central role in astrophysics as stellar models are used to infer properties for Galactic and Extragalactic stellar populations as well as exoplanetary systems. However, despite decades of experience,…
The manner the galaxy accretes matter along with the star formation rates at different epochs, influence the evolution of the stable isotopic inventories of the galaxy. A detailed analysis is presented here to study the dependence of the…
Galactic superbubbles are triggered by stellar feedback in the discs of star-forming galaxies. They are important in launching galactic winds, which play a key role in regulating the mass and energy exchange in galaxies. Observations can…
Thick disks appear to be common in external large spiral galaxies and our own Milky Way also hosts one. The existence of a thick disk is possibly directly linked to the formation history of the host galaxy and if its properties is known it…
A new view of disk evolution is emerging from self-consistent numerical simulation modeling of the formation of circumstellar disks from the direct collapse of prestellar cloud cores. This has implications for many aspects of star and…
Observations of circumstellar disks around stars as a function of stellar properties such as mass, metallicity, multiplicity, and age, provide constraints on theories concerning the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Utilizing…
We review progress in the development of physically realistic three dimensional simulated models of the galaxy.We consider the scales from star forming molecular clouds to the full spiral disc. Models are computed using hydrodynamic (HD) or…
Most analytic work to date on protostellar disks has focused on those in isolation from their environments. However, observations are now beginning to probe the earliest, most embedded phases of star formation, during which disks are…
Galaxy disks evolve through angular momentum transfers between sub-components, like gas, stars, or dark matter halos, through non axi-symmetric instabilities. The speed of this evolution is boosted in presence of a large fraction of cold…
Correlations between stellar kinematics and chemical abundances are fossil evidence for evolutionary connections between Galactic structural components. Extensive stellar surveys show that the only tolerably clear distinction between…
An overview over the current status of modeling galaxies by means of numerical simulations is given. After a short description of how galaxies form in hierarchically clustering scenarios, success and failures of current simulations are…
The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of astrophysics. Within the broad context of hierachical structure formation, we have only a crude picture of how galaxies like our own came into existence. A…
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…
Dust grains play a fundamental role in galaxies, influencing both their evolution and observability. As a result, incorporating dust physics into galaxy evolution simulations is essential. This is a challenging task due to the finite…
Star formation from the interstellar medium of galactic disks is a basic process controlling the evolution of galaxies. Understanding the star formation rate in a local patch of a disk with a given gas mass is thus an important challenge…
Stars are fossils that retain the history of their host galaxies. Elements heavier than helium are created inside stars and are ejected when they die. From the spatial distribution of elements in galaxies, it is therefore possible to…
Since stellar populations enhance particular element abundances according to the yields and lifetimes of the stellar progenitors, the chemical evolution of galaxies serves as one of the key tools that allows the tracing of galaxy evolution.…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…