Related papers: Star formation near an obscured AGN: Variations in…
As star-forming clouds collapse, the gas within them fragments to ever-smaller masses. Naively one might expect this process to continue down to the smallest mass that is able to radiate away its binding energy on a dynamical timescale, the…
In this contribution we review our recent numerical work discussing the essential role of the local cluster environment in assembling massive stars. First we show that massive stars are formed from low mass pre-stellar cores and become…
The evolution of the galaxy stellar mass--star formation rate relationship (M*-SFR) provides key constraints on the stellar mass assembly histories of galaxies. For star-forming galaxies, M*-SFR is observed to be fairly tight with a slope…
Any predictive theory of star formation must explain observed variations (or lack thereof) in the initial mass function. Recent work suggests that we might expect quantitative variations in the IMF as a function of metallicity (Larson 2005)…
Recent results on the non-universality of the Initial Mass Function (IMF) have shown strong evidence of IMF variations with galaxy velocity dispersion, with a corresponding impact on other stellar population parameters, line indices and…
Recent studies proposed that cosmic rays (CR) are a key ingredient in setting the conditions for star formation, thanks to their ability to alter the thermal and chemical state of dense gas in the UV-shielded cores of molecular clouds. In…
Several recent observational studies have concluded that the initial mass function (IMF) of stars varies systematically with galaxy properties such as velocity dispersion. In this paper, we investigate the effect of linking the circular…
The total extragalactic background radiation can be an important test of the global star formation history (SFH). Using direct observational estimates of the SFH, along with standard assumptions about the initial mass function (IMF), we…
The stellar initial-mass function (IMF) represents a fundamental quantity in astrophysics and cosmology, describing the mass distribution of stars from low to very-high masses. It is intimately linked to a wide variety of topics, including…
We investigate how different stellar initial mass functions (IMFs) can affect the mass loss and survival of star clusters. We find that IMFs with radically different low-mass cut-offs (between 0.1 and 2 Msun) do not change cluster…
Star formation in galaxies relies on the availability of cold, dense gas, which, in turn, relies on factors internal and external to the galaxies. In order to provide a simple model for how star formation is regulated by various physical…
We investigated a volume-limited sample of LAMOST main-sequence stars with masses from 0.25 to 1 $M_{\odot}$ and distances of 150-350 pc to explore how the stellar initial mass function (IMF) varies with metallicity. We corrected the…
Star formation models predict that the metal-poor initial mass function (IMF) can be substantially different from that observed in the metal-rich Milky Way. This changeover occurs because metal-poor gas clouds cool inefficiently due to…
We use numerical simulations of the fragmentation of a 1000 solar mass molecular cloud and the formation of a stellar cluster to study how the initial conditions for star formation affect the resulting initial mass function (IMF). In…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the mean thermal Jeans mass in molecular clouds. We compare the results from the two largest hydrodynamical simulations of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to…
We examine the star formation history and stellar feedback effects of dwarf galaxies under the influence of extragalactic ultraviolet radiation. We consider the dynamical evolution of gas in dwarf galaxies using a one-dimensional,…
Cosmic rays (CRs) control the thermal, ionization and chemical state of the dense H_2 gas regions that otherwise remain shielded from far-UV and optical stellar radiation propagating through the dusty ISM of galaxies. It is in such…
Recent work suggested that the variation of the initial mass function (IMF) of stars depends on the physical conditions, notably, the metallicity and gas density. We investigated the properties of two clusters, namely the main cluster (MC)…
The stellar initial mass function (IMF) integrated over an entire galaxy is an integral over all separate star-formation events. Since most stars form in star clusters with different masses the integrated IMF becomes an integral of the…
Abridged: We have undertaken a series of hydrodynamical simulations of multiple star formation in small turbulent molecular clouds. Our goal is to determine the sensitivity of the properties of the resulting stars and brown dwarfs to…