Related papers: What is a GMC? Are Observers and Simulators Discus…
Molecular clouds (MC) are structures of dense gas in the interstellar medium (ISM), that extend from ten to a few hundred parsecs and form the main gas reservoir available for star formation. Hydrodynamical simulations of varying complexity…
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…
We compare the properties of clouds in simulated M33 galaxies to those observed in the real M33. We apply a friends of friends algorithm and CPROPS to identify clouds, as well as a pixel by pixel analysis. We obtain very good agreement…
The physical properties of molecular clouds are often measured using spectral-line observations, which provide the only probes of the clouds' velocity structure. It is hard, though, to assess whether and to what extent intensity features in…
We investigate physical properties of molecular clouds in disc galaxies with different morphology: a galaxy without prominent structure, a spiral barred galaxy and a galaxy with flocculent structure. Our $N$-body/hydrodynamical simulations…
All stars are born in molecular clouds, and most in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), which thus set the star formation activity of galaxies. We first review their observed properties, including measures of mass surface density, Sigma, and…
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…
We apply gravity-based and density-based methods to identify clouds in numerical simulations of the star-forming, three-phase interstellar medium (ISM), and compare their properties and their global correlation with the star formation rate…
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…
In recent years, there were studies on the omnipresence and structures of filaments in star-forming regions, and the role of their fragmentation in the process of star formation. However, only a few studies analysed the evolution of…
By resimulating a region of a global disc simulation at higher resolution, we resolve and study the properties of molecular clouds with a range of masses from a few 100's M$_{\odot}$ to $10^6$ M$_{\odot}$. The purpose of our paper is…
We examine how well the physical properties of clumps in turbulent molecular clouds can be determined by measurements of observed clump structures. We compare simulated observations of three-dimensional numerical models of isothermal,…
We investigate the impact of galactic environment on the properties of simulated giant molecular clouds formed in a M83-type barred spiral galaxy. Our simulation uses a rotating stellar potential to create the grand design features and…
Using hydrodynamical simulations of a Milky Way-like galaxy, reaching 4.6 pc resolution, we study how the choice of star formation criteria impacts both galactic and Giant Molecular Clouds (GMC) scales. We find that using a turbulent,…
Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are the primary reservoirs of cold, star-forming molecular gas in the Milky Way and similar galaxies, and thus any understanding of star formation must encompass a model for GMC formation, evolution, and…
We present the results from simulations of GMC formation in spiral galaxies. First we discuss cloud formation by cloud-cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities, arguing that the former is prevalent at lower galactic surface…
Understanding the formation and evolution of high mass star clusters requires comparisons between theoretical and observational data to be made. Unfortunately, while the full phase space of simulated regions is available, often only partial…
We explore whether observed molecular clouds could include a substantial population of unbound clouds. Using simulations which include only turbulence and gravity, we are able to match observed relations and naturally reproduce the observed…
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 investigate giant molecular cloud (GMCs) collisions and their ability to induce gravitational instability and thus star formation. This mechanism may be a major driver of star formation activity in galactic disks. We carry out a series…