Related papers: Sustaining star formation rates in spiral galaxies…
Complex turbulent motions are ubiquitously observed in many astrophysical systems. Their origin, however, is still poorly understood. When cosmic structures form, they grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding environment. We propose…
Spiral galaxies comprise three major structural components; thin discs, thick discs, and central bulges. Relative dominance of these components is known to correlate with the total mass of the galaxy, and produces a remarkable morphological…
Star formation depends on the available gaseous "fuel" as well as galactic environment, with higher specific star formation rates where gas is predominantly molecular and where stellar (and dark matter) densities are higher. The partition…
Spiral galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the role of star formation in galaxy evolution and to test various theoretical star formation schemes. I review some recent relevant work on the evolution of spiral galaxies. Detailed…
We present numerical evidence of dynamic star formation in which the accreted stellar mass grows superlinearly with time, roughly as $t^2$. We perform simulations of star formation in self-gravitating hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic…
Accretion disks around active galactic nuclei are potentially unstable to star formation at large radii. We note that when the compact objects formed from some of these stars spiral into the central supermassive black hole, there is no…
We analyze the first cosmological simulations that recover the fragmentation of high-redshift galactic discs driven by cold streams. The fragmentation is recovered owing to an AMR resolution better than 70 pc with cooling below 10^4 K. We…
We derive the evolution equations describing a thin axisymmetric disk of gas and stars with an arbitrary rotation curve that is kept in a state of marginal gravitational instability and energy equilibrium due to the balance between energy…
In recent years, it has been demonstrated that massive stars see their infant circumstellar medium shaped into a large, irradiated, gravitationally unstable accretion disc during their early formation phase. Such discs constitute the gas…
Scattering of stars by interstellar clouds or massive clumps increases the stellar velocity dispersion and promotes a radial disk profile that is exponential. Here we show that such scattering reaches a steady-state distribution function of…
Star formation in galaxies is inefficient, and understanding how star formation is regulated in galaxies is one of the most fundamental challenges of contemporary astrophysics. Radiative cooling, feedback from supernovae and active galactic…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
We determine radial velocities and mass flow rates in a sample of 54 local spiral galaxies by modelling high-resolution and high-sensitivity data of the atomic hydrogen emission line. We found that, although radial inflow motions seem to be…
Current understanding of the secular evolution of galactic disks suggests that this process is dominated by two or more heating mechanisms, which increase the random motions of stars in the disk. In particular, the gravitational influence…
In this work, we present results on the assembly of stellar discs belonging to Milky Way-type galaxies in the Auriga simulated sample. We study the net accretion of gas onto the disc region as a function of time and radius to assess the…
(ABBREVIATED) Understanding the formation of stars in galaxies is central to much of modern astrophysics. In this review the relation between interstellar turbulence and star formation is discussed. Supersonic turbulence can provide support…
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…
Observations of highly rotationally supported gas discs in high redshift ($z$ > 3) star-forming galaxies challenge our understanding of galaxy formation, as the prevailing view holds that galaxies in the early universe are dynamically hot…
We develop an analytic model to calculate the rate at which galaxy disks are heated by dark matter substructures orbiting in their halos. The model takes into account the internal structure, mass function and accretion rate of satellites…
Observations indicate that massive stars form in regions of very high surface density, ~1 g cm^-2. Clusters containing massive stars and globular clusters have a comparable column density. The total pressure in clouds of such a column…