Related papers: Star Formation Relations in Nearby Molecular Cloud…
A simple, observationally-motivated model is presented for understanding how halo masses, galaxy stellar masses, and star formation rates are related, and how these relations evolve with time. The relation between halo mass and galaxy…
Molecular clouds often exhibit filamentary or sheet-like shapes. We compute the free-fall time ($\tff$) for finite, uniform, self-gravitating circular sheets and filamentary clouds of small but finite thickness, so that their volume density…
Molecular clouds are regions of dense gas and dust in space where new stars and planets are born. There is a strong correlation between the distribution of dust and molecular gas in molecular clouds. The present work focuses on the…
A star formation efficiency per free fall time that evolves over the life time of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) may have important implications for models of supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds or for the relation between star…
We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self…
We used CO (2-1) and CO (1-0) data cubes to identify molecular clouds and study their kinematics and dynamics in three nearby galaxies and the inner Milky Way. When observed at similar spatial and velocity resolutions, molecular clouds in…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
Most stars in the Galaxy are believed to be formed within star clusters from collapsing molecular clouds. However, the complete process of star formation, from the parent cloud to a gas-free star cluster, is still poorly understood. We…
We investigate the dependence of stellar properties on the initial kinematic structure of the gas in star-forming molecular clouds. We compare the results from two large-scale hydrodynamical simulations of star cluster formation that…
The formation of stars is inextricably linked to the structure of their parental molecular clouds. Here we take a number of nearby giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and analyse their column density and mass distributions. This investigation is…
We review recent observations of molecular gas in nearby galaxies and their implications for the star formation law on large (>1 kpc) scales. High-resolution data provided by millimetre interferometers are now adding to the basic…
We demonstrate that the observationally inferred rapid onset of star formation after parental molecular clouds have assembled can be achieved by flow-driven cloud formation of atomic gas, using our previous three-dimensional numerical…
Galactic star formation scaling relations show increased scatter from kpc to sub-kpc scales. Investigating this scatter may hold important clues to how the star formation process evolves in time and space. Here, we combine different…
Most young stars in nearby molecular clouds have estimated ages of 1-2 Myr, suggesting that star formation is rapid. However, small numbers of stars in these regions with inferred ages of >= 5-10 Myr have been cited to argue that star…
We measure empirical relationships between the local star formation rate (SFR) and properties of the star-forming molecular gas on 1.5 kpc scales across 80 nearby galaxies. These relationships, commonly referred to as "star formation laws,"…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
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…
We analyze the optical continuum of star-forming galaxies in SDSS by fitting stacked spectra with stellar population synthesis models to investigate the relation between stellar mass, stellar metallicity, dust attenuation and star formation…
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.…
We study star cluster formation in various environments with different metallicities and column densities by performing a suite of three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulations. We find that the photoionization feedback from massive…