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Although fundamental for astrophysics, the processes that produce massive stars are not well understood. Large distances, high extinction, and short timescales of critical evolutionary phases make observations of these processes…
Stars do not generally form in isolation. Instead, they form in clusters, and in these clustered environments newborn stars can have profound effects on one another and on their parent gas clouds. Feedback from clustered stars is almost…
A number of theoretical and simulation results on star and structure formation in galaxy interactions and mergers is reviewed, and recent hydrodynamic simulations are presented. The role of gravity torques and ISM turbulence in galaxy…
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…
We review recent theoretical results on the formation of the first stars in the universe, and emphasize related open questions. In particular, we discuss the initial conditions for Population III star formation, as given by variants of the…
Stars are powerful sources for weakly interacting particles that are produced by nuclear or plasma processes in their hot interior. These fluxes can be used for direct measurements (e.g. solar or supernova neutrinos) or the back-reaction on…
The enormous radiative and mechanical luminosities of massive stars impact a vast range of scales and processes, from the reionization of the universe, to the evolution of galaxies, to the regulation of the interstellar medium, to the…
Star formation, together with the associated chemical and energy feedback, is one of the most important processes in galaxy evolution. The star formation activity in galaxies defines and affects many of their fundamental properties, such as…
Star formation is inefficient. Only a few percent of the available gas in molecular clouds forms stars, leading to the observed low star formation rate (SFR). The same holds when averaged over many molecular clouds, such that the SFR of…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
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.…
Much of modern astrophysics is grounded on the observed chemical compositions of stars and the diffuse plasma that pervades the space between stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies. X-ray and EUV spectra of the hot plasma in the outer…
Recent results from the James Webb Space Telescope show that nearby spiral galaxies are dominated by the presence of H I and H II bubbles that strongly shape their surrounding medium. These bubbles result from the feedback of high-mass…
In this review, we describe our current understanding of cluster formation: from the general picture of collapse from initial density fluctuations in an expanding Universe to detailed simulations of cluster formation including the effects…
Empirical star formation laws from the last 20 years are reviewed with a comparison to simulations. The current form in main galaxy disks has a linear relationship between the star formation rate per unit area and the molecular cloud mass…
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…
The rapid advances in observations of the different populations of exoplanets, the characterization of their host stars and the links to the properties of their planetary systems, the detailed studies of protoplanetary disks, and the…
The basic processes of the formation of the first stars in the primordial Universe are outlined and the implications for cosmological structure formation discussed. By employing theoretical and numerical models of cosmic structure evolution…
In this review, I survey our current understanding of how the very first stars in the universe formed, with a focus on three main areas of interest: the formation of the first protogalaxies and the cooling of gas within them, the nature and…
Major progress has been made over the last few years in understanding hydrodynamical processes on cosmological scales, in particular how galaxies get their baryons. There is increasing recognition that a large part of the baryons accrete…