Related papers: Star formation in infrared dark clouds: Self-gravi…
Interstellar dust grains are responsible for modifying the spectral energy distribution (SED) of galaxies, both absorbing starlight at UV and optical wavelengths and converting this energy into thermal emission in the infrared. The detailed…
Together with interstellar turbulence, gravitation is one key player in star formation. It acts both at galactic scales in the assembly of gas into dense clouds, and inside those structures for their collapse and the formation of…
Even today in our Galaxy, stars form from gas cores in a variety of environments, which may affect the properties of resulting star and planetary systems. Here we study the role of pressure, parameterized via ambient clump mass surface…
Models of structure formation in the universe postulate that matter distributions observed today in galaxy catalogs arise, through a complex non-linear dynamics, by gravitational evolution from a very uniform initial state. Dark matter…
Stars form when filaments and dense cores in molecular clouds fragment and collapse due to self-gravity. In the most basic analyses of gravitational stability, the competition between self-gravity and thermal pressure sets the critical…
The evolution of star clusters is determined by several internal and external processes. Here we focus on two dominant internal effects, namely energy exchange between stars through close encounters (two-body relaxation) and mass-loss of…
I review recent results derived from numerical simulations of the turbulent interstellar medium (ISM), in particular concerning the nature and formation of turbulent clouds, methods for comparing the structure in simulations and…
In this paper we discuss the influence of gravitational instabilities in massive protostellar discs on the dynamics of dust grains. Starting from a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation, we have computed the evolution of the dust…
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…
The path to understanding star formation processes begins with the study of the formation of molecular clouds. The outskirts of these clouds are characterized by low column densities that allow the penetration of ultraviolet radiation,…
We report the first results of a detailed study of the star formation law in a sample of 32 nearby spiral galaxies with well-measured rotation curves, HI and H$_2$ (as traced by CO) surface density profiles, and new \Ha CCD photometry. Our…
Stars form by the gravitational collapse of interstellar gas. The thermodynamic response of the gas can be characterized by an effective equation of state. It determines how gas heats up or cools as it gets compressed, and hence plays a key…
The density structure of the interstellar medium (ISM) determines where stars form and release energy, momentum, and heavy elements, driving galaxy evolution. Density variations are seeded and amplified by gas motion, but the exact nature…
I present an overview of the hierarchy of structures existing in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the possible mechanisms that cause the fragmentation of one level into the next, with the formation of stars as its last step. Within this…
In star forming regions, we can observe different evolutionary stages of various objects and phenomena such as molecular clouds, protostellar jets and outflows, circumstellar disks, and protostars. However, it is difficult to directly…
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…
The conditions that lead to self-regulated star formation, star bursts and the formation of massive stellar clusters are discussed. Massive stars have a strong impact on their environment, especially on the evolution of dwarf galaxies which…
There has been remarkable progress recently in both observational and theoretical studies of galaxy formation and evolution. Largely due to a combination of deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging, Keck spectroscopy, and COBE far-IR background…
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…
One of the last missing pieces in the puzzle of galaxy formation and evolution through cosmic history is a detailed picture of the role of the cold gas supply in the star-formation process. Cold gas is the fuel for star formation, and thus…