Related papers: Theoretical Challenges in Galaxy Formation
The current status of numerical simulations of galaxy formation is reviewed. After a short description of the main numerical simulation techniques, three sample applications illustrate how numerical simulations have provided deeper insight…
Galaxies form out of small fluctuations in a smoothly expanding Universe. However, the initial gravitational collapse phase is accompanied by the formation of supermassive black holes and clusters of massive stars. Black holes and star…
The importance of angular momentum in regulating the sizes of galactic disks and by this their star formation history is highlighted. Tidal torques and accretion of satellites in principle provide enough angular momentum to form disks with…
The latest observations of molecular gas and the atomic hydrogen content of local and high-redshift galaxies, coupled with how these correlate with star formation activity, have revolutionized our ideas about how to model star formation in…
Observations have suggested that galactic outflows contain substantial amounts of dense and clumpy molecular gas, creating favourable conditions for igniting star formation. Indeed, theoretical models and hydrodynamical simulations have…
The characterization of the large amount of gas residing in the galaxy halos, the so called circumgalactic medium (CGM), is crucial to understand galaxy evolution across cosmic time. We focus here on the the cool ($T\sim10^4$ K) phase of…
We present an analytic formalism that describes the evolution of the stellar, gas, and metal content of galaxies. It is based on the idea, inspired by hydrodynamic simulations, that galaxies live in a slowly-evolving equilibrium between…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
The challenge of dark matter may be addressed in two ways; by studying the confrontation of structure formation with observation and by direct and indirect searches. In this review, I will focus on those aspects of dark matter that are…
Recent observations have revealed massive galactic molecular outflows that may have physical conditions (high gas densities) required to form stars. Indeed, several recent models predict that such massive galactic outflows may ignite star…
Galaxies comprise intricate networks of interdependent processes which together govern their evolution. Central among these are the multiplicity of feedback channels, which remain incompletely understood. One outstanding problem is the…
Large volume cosmological simulations succeed in reproducing the large-scale structure of the Universe. However, they lack resolution and may not take into account all relevant physical processes to test if the detail properties of galaxies…
Several models have predicted that stars could form inside galactic outflows and that this would be a new major mode of galaxy evolution. Observations of galactic outflows have revealed that they host large amounts of dense and clumpy…
This paper presents a review of the topic of galaxy formation and evolution, focusing on basic features of galaxies, and how these observables reveal how galaxies and their stars assemble over cosmic time. I give an overview of the observed…
Galaxy nuclei are a unique laboratory to study gas flows. High-resolution imaging of the gas flows in galactic nuclei are instrumental in the study of the fueling and the feedback of star formation and nuclear activity in nearby galaxies.…
The central problem of galaxy formation is understanding the cooling and condensation of gas in dark matter halos. It is now clear that to match observations this requires further physics than the simple assumptions of single phase gas…
Dust grains play a fundamental role in galaxies, influencing both their evolution and observability. As a result, incorporating dust physics into galaxy evolution simulations is essential. This is a challenging task due to the finite…
The theory of stellar evolution plays a central role in astrophysics as stellar models are used to infer properties for Galactic and Extragalactic stellar populations as well as exoplanetary systems. However, despite decades of experience,…
We present results from thirteen cosmological simulations that explore the parameter space of the "Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments" (EAGLE) simulation project. Four of the simulations follow the evolution of a…
We describe simple useful toy models for key processes of galaxy formation in its most active phase, at z > 1, and test the approximate expressions against the typical behaviour in a suite of high-resolution hydro-cosmological simulations…