Related papers: The interstellar medium: from molecules to star fo…
Understanding the matter cycle in the interstellar medium of galaxies from the assembly of clouds to star formation and stellar feedback remains an important and exciting field in comtemporary astrophysics. Many open questions regarding…
Stars and star clusters form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest…
In these lectures I review observations of star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy and nearby galaxies to develop a physical intuition for understanding star formation in the local and high-redshift Universe. A lot of this material is…
We discuss the outstanding issues of the interstellar medium which will depend on the application of knowledge from plasma physics. We particularly advocate attention to recent developments in experimental plasma physics, and urge that the…
We present a method for modelling star-forming clouds that combines two different models of the thermal evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). In the combined model, where the densities are low enough that at least some part of the…
Stars are amongst the most fundamental structures of our Universe. They comprise most of the baryonic and luminous mass of galaxies, synthethise heavy elements, and injec\ t mass, momentum, and energy into the interstellar medium. They are…
The goal of this science case is to study physical conditions of the interstellar medium (ISM) in distant galaxies. In particular, its densest component is associated with the inner cores of clouds -- this is where star formation takes…
The cold interstellar medium (ISM) as the raw material for star formation is critical to understanding galaxy evolution. It is generally understood that galaxies stop making stars when, in one way or another, they run out of gas. However,…
Stars form within molecular clouds but our understanding of this fundamental process remains hampered by the complexity of the physics that drives their evolution. We review our observational and theoretical knowledge of molecular clouds…
Magnetic fields are important at every scale in the star formation process: from the dynamics of the ISM in galaxies, to the collapse of turbulent molecular clouds to form stars and in the fragmentation of individual star forming cores. The…
The interstellar medium (ISM) is subject, on one hand, to heating and cooling processes that tend to segregate it into distinct phases due to thermal instability (TI), and on the other, to turbulence-driving mechanisms that tend to produce…
We investigate the gravitational instability of galactic discs, treating stars and cold interstellar gas as two distinct components, and taking into account the phenomenology of turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM), i.e. the…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is a vital element in galaxies, as it mediates the baryon cycle essential for regulating galaxy activity. It is also highly complex due to the intricate distributions of temperature, density, metallicity, and…
The ISO and Spitzer space observatories yielded a treasure trove of data on dust and ices covering dust grains. Now Herschel, and soon SOFIA and ALMA, will provide unprecedented views of the molecular world of the interstellar medium (ISM).…
ISM comprises multiple components, including molecular, neutral, and ionized gas, and dust, which are related to each other mainly through star formation - some are fuel for star formation (molecular gas) while some are the products of it…
(abridged) The far-UV wavelength range (912-2000A) provides access to atomic and molecular transitions of many species the interstellar medium (ISM), circumgalactic medium (CGM), and intergalactic medium, within phases spanning a wide range…
Astrochemistry is a well-established multidisciplinary field devoted to study molecules in space. While most astrochemists are oriented to observe molecules in the gas phase and reproduce their abundances by modeling the physical conditions…
Most stars are born in rich young stellar clusters (YSCs) embedded in giant molecular clouds. The most massive stars live out their short lives there, profoundly influencing their natal environments by ionizing HII regions, inflating…
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) comprises gases at different temperatures and densities, including ionized, atomic, molecular species, and dust particles. The neutral ISM is dominated by neutral hydrogen and has ionization fractions up to 8%.…
The intergalactic medium (IGM) accounts for ~90% of baryons at all epochs and yet its three dimensional distribution in the cosmic web remains mostly unknown. This is so because the only feasible way to observe the bulk of the IGM is…