Related papers: Tidal stability of giant molecular clouds in the L…
Contemporary galactic star formation occurs predominantly within gravitationally unstable, cold, dense molecular gas within supersonic, turbulent, magnetized giant molecular clouds (GMCs). Significantly, because the chemical evolution…
Gravity drives the collapse of molecular clouds through which stars form, yet the exact role of gravity in cloud collapse remains a complex issue. Studies point to a picture where star formation occurs in clusters. In a typical, pc-sized…
Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) are dominated by supersonic turbulence, creating a complex network of shocks and filaments that regulate star formation. While the global inefficiency of star formation is well-observed, predicting exactly…
We derive structural parameters and evidence for extended tidal debris from star count and preliminary standard candle analyses of the Large Magellanic Cloud based on Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) data. The full-sky coverage and low…
An expression is provided for the self-lensing optical depth of the thin LMC disk surrounded by a shroud of stars at larger scale heights. The formula is written in terms of the vertical velocity dispersion of the thin disk population. If…
We study the formation of giant dense cloud complexes and of stars within them by means of SPH numerical simulations of the mildly supersonic collision of gas streams (``inflows'') in the warm neutral medium (WNM). The resulting…
We present a large suite of MHD simulations of turbulent, star-forming giant molecular clouds(GMCs) with stellar feedback, extending previous work by simulating 10 different random realizations for each point in the parameter space of cloud…
Bound orbits have traditionally been assigned to the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) in order to provide a formation scenario for the Magellanic Stream (MS) and its Leading Arm (LA), two prominent neutral…
Stars generally form faster than the ambipolar diffusion time, suggesting that several processes short circuit the delay and promote a rapid collapse. These processes are considered here, including turbulence compression in the outer parts…
We present a unified description of the scenario of Global Hierarchical Collapse and fragmentation (GHC) in molecular clouds (MCs), owing to the continuous decrease of the average Jeans mass in the contracting cloud. GHC constitutes a…
We present a simple, self-consistent model to predict the maximum masses of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), stellar clusters and high-redshift clumps as a function of the galactic environment. Recent works have proposed that these maximum…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and their stellar offspring are the building blocks of galaxies. The physical characteristics of GMCs and their evolution are tightly connected to galaxy evolution. The macroscopic properties of the…
Recent radio observations show that the giant molecular cloud (GMC) mass functions noticeably vary across galactic disks. High-resolution magnetohydrodynamics simulations show that multiple episodes of compression are required for creating…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the sites of star formation in the Galaxy. Many of their properties can be understood in terms of a model in which the GMCs and the star-forming clumps within them are in approximate pressure equilibrium,…
Molecular clouds are supported by turbulence and magnetic fields, but quantifying their influence on cloud lifecycle and star formation efficiency (SFE) remains an open question. We perform radiation MHD simulations of star-forming giant…
Stellar feedback, star formation and gravitational interactions are major controlling forces in the evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs). To explore their relative roles, we examine the properties and evolution of GMCs forming in an…
Increasing evidences suggest that the Galactic halo is lumpy on kpc scales due to the accretion of at least a dozen small galaxies (LMC/SMC, Sgr, Fornax etc.). Faint stars in such lumpy structures can significant microlense a background…
I describe the scenario of molecular cloud (MC) evolution that has emerged over the past decade or so. MCs can start out as cold atomic clouds formed by compressive motions in the warm neutral medium (WNM) of galaxies. Such motions can be…
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has a complex dynamics driven by both internal and external processes. The external forces are due to tidal interactions with the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way, while internally its dynamics…
We present the results of a study of simulated Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) formed in a Milky Way-type galactic disk with a flat rotation curve. This simulation, which does not include star formation or feedback, produces clouds with…