Related papers: How do Galaxies Accrete Gas and Form Stars?
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.…
Disk accretion may be the fundamental astrophysical process. Stars and planets form through the accretion of gas in a disk. Black holes and galaxies co-evolve through efficient disk accretion onto the central supermassive black hole.…
How and when did galaxies form and assemble their stars and stellar mass? The answer to these questions, so crucial to astrophysics and cosmology, requires the full reconstruction of the so called cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD),…
Much progress has been made in recent years by the galaxy simulation community in making realistic galaxies, mostly by more accurately capturing the effects of baryons on the structural evolution of dark matter halos at high resolutions.…
Galaxies are complex systems the evolution of which apparently results from the interplay of dynamics, star formation, chemical enrichment, and feedback from supernova explosions and supermassive black holes. The hierarchical theory of…
Large volume cosmological simulations succeed in reproducing the large-scale structure of the Universe. However, they lack resolution and may not take into account all relevant physical processes to test if the detail properties of galaxies…
Recent studies of galaxies ~2-3 Gyr after the Big Bang have revealed large, turbulent rotating systems. The existence of well-ordered rotation in galaxies during this peak epoch of cosmic star formation may suggest that gas accretion…
(Abridged) In these lectures aimed for non-specialists, I review progress in understanding how galaxies form and evolve. Both the star formation history and assembly of stellar mass can be empirically traced from redshifts z~6 to the…
In the first two years of operation JWST has delivered key new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe. By combining imaging with spectroscopy, we discovered and characterised the first generation of…
The ability to resolve all processes which drive galaxy formation is one of the most fundamental goals in extragalactic astronomy. While star formation rates and the merger history are now measured with increasingly high certainty, the role…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…
For most of their lives, galaxies are surrounded by large and massive coronae of hot gas, which constitute vast reservoirs for gas accretion. This Chapter describes a mechanism that allows star-forming disc galaxies to extract gas from…
The challenge of dark matter may be addressed in two ways; by studying the confrontation of structure formation with observation and by direct and indirect searches. In this review, I will focus on those aspects of dark matter that are…
We propose that star formation is delayed relative to the inflow rate in rapidly-accreting galaxies at very high redshift (z > 2) because of the energy conveyed by the accreting gas. Accreting gas streams provide fuel for star formation,…
We review progress over the past decade in observations of large-scale star formation, with a focus on the interface between extragalactic and Galactic studies. Methods of measuring gas contents and star formation rates are discussed, and…
A new view on our Galaxy has recently emerged, with large consequences on its formation scenarios. Not only new dwarf satellites have been detected, still orbiting and tidally disrupting, but also a multitude of stellar streams or tidal…
In the local Universe, the efficiency for converting baryonic gas into stars is very low. In dark matter halos where galaxies form and evolve, the average efficiency varies with galaxy stellar mass and has a maximum of about twenty percent…
The formation of stars from gas drives the evolution of galaxies. Yet, it remains one of the hardest processes to understand when trying to connect observations of stellar and galaxy populations to models of large scale structure formation.…
Our Galaxy is a complex machine in which several processes operate simultaneously: metal-poor gas is accreted, is chemically enriched by dying stars, and then drifts inwards, surrendering its angular momentum to stars; new stars are formed…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…