Related papers: Solid State Astrophysics: Probing Interstellar Dus…
Surface densities of gas, dust and stars provide a window into the physics of star-formation that, until the advent of high-resolution far-infrared/sub-millimeter observations, has been historically difficult to assess amongst dusty…
We present models for the evolution of the elemental abundances in the gas and dust phases of the interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy by generalizing standard models for its dynamical and chemical evolution. In these models, the stellar…
Information about the make-up of the galaxy arrives in the Solar system in many forms: photons of different energies, classically collected by ground- and space-based telescopes, neutral and charged atomic particles, and solid macroscopic…
We present a model of the interaction of interstellar dust grains with a stellar environment, that predicts the distribution of interstellar dust grains in the size range between $0.1 {\rm \mu m}$ and $1 {\rm \mu m}$ around a star for the…
The extent to which the ISM in galaxies is well mixed is not yet settled. Measured metal abundances in the diffuse neutral gas of star--forming gas--rich dwarf galaxies are deficient with respect to that of the ionized gas. The reasons, if…
The ISO and Spitzer space observatories yielded a treasure trove of data on dust and ices covering dust grains. Now Herschel, and soon SOFIA and ALMA, will provide unprecedented views of the molecular world of the interstellar medium (ISM).…
The gas-phase metallicity affects heating and cooling processes in the star-forming galactic interstellar medium (ISM) as well as ionising luminosities, wind strengths, and lifetimes of massive stars. To investigate its impact, we conduct…
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…
Interstellar dust is a key physical ingredient of galaxies, obscuring star formation, regulating the heating and cooling of the gas, and building-up chemical complexity. In this manuscript, I give a wide review of interstellar dust…
We explore the relationship between gas and dust in massive star-forming regions by comparing physical properties derived from each. We compare the temperatures and column densities in a massive star-forming Infrared Dark Cloud (IRDC,…
Observations of interstellar gas and dust towards nearby stars and within the solar system show that the Sun is embedded in a warm diffuse partially-ionized cloud. This cloud is the leading edge of a flow of interstellar matter (ISM)…
Dust is a crucial component of the interstellar medium of galaxies. The presence of dust strongly affects the light produced by stars within a galaxy. As these photons are our main information vector to explore the stellar mass assembly and…
Dust is a key component of the Universe, especially regarding galaxies evolution, playing an essential role for both the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium. In this paper, we give a brief review of interstellar dust. We…
We summarise observations and our current understanding of the interstellar medium (ISM) in galaxies, which mainly consists of three phases: cold atomic or molecular gas and clouds, warm neutral or ionised gas, and hot ionised gas. These…
We present a novel framework to self-consistently model the effects of radiation fields, dust physics and molecular chemistry (H$_2$) in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies. The model combines a state-of-the-art radiation…
Understanding the infrared emission of galaxies is critical to observational and theoretical investigations of the condensation of galaxies out of the intergalactic medium and the conversion of gas into stars over cosmic time. From an…
Nanometer- and micrometer-sized solid particles play an important role in the evolutionary cycle of stars and interstellar matter. The optical properties of cosmic grains determine the interaction of the radiation field with the solids,…
We describe the potential of high resolution imaging spectroscopy with the SXS on ASTRO-H to advance our understanding of the interstellar- and circumgalactic media of our own Galaxy, and other galaxies. Topics to be addressed range from…
We analyse the far-infrared properties of $\sim$ 5,000 star-forming galaxies at $z<4.5$, drawn from the deepest, super-deblended catalogues in the GOODS-N and COSMOS fields. We develop a novel panchromatic SED fitting algorithm,…
The X-ray regime is a largely underused resource for constraining interstellar dust grain models and improving our understanding of the physical processes that dictate how grains evolve over their lifetimes. This is mostly due to current…