Related papers: Determining Star Formation Thresholds from Observa…
Star formation has long been known to be an inefficient process, in the sense that only a small fraction $\epsilon_{\rm ff}$ of the mass of any given gas cloud is converted to stars per cloud free-fall time. However, developing a successful…
The presence of a volume density gradient in molecular clumps allow them to raise their star formation rate compared to what they would experience were their gas uniform in density. This higher star formation rate yields in turn a higher…
It has been known for more than 30 years that star formation in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is slow, in the sense that only ~1% of the gas forms stars every free-fall time. This result is entirely independent of any particular model of…
The relations between star formation and properties of molecular clouds are studied based on a sample of star forming regions in the Galactic Plane. Sources were selected by having radio recombination lines to provide identification of…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host…
Star formation in galaxies relies on the availability of cold, dense gas, which, in turn, relies on factors internal and external to the galaxies. In order to provide a simple model for how star formation is regulated by various physical…
We present radiation-magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of star formation in self-gravitating, turbulent molecular clouds, modeling the formation of individual massive stars, including their UV radiation feedback. The set of simulations have…
Observations that resolve nearby galaxies into individual regions across multiple phases of the gas-star formation-feedback ``matter cycle'' have provided a sharp new view of molecular clouds, star formation efficiencies, timescales for…
We present a suite of 3D multi-physics MHD simulations following star formation in isolated turbulent molecular gas disks ranging from 5 to 500 parsecs in radius. These simulations are designed to survey the range of surface densities…
In this paper we investigate the level of star formation activity within nearby molecular clouds. We employ a uniform set of infrared extinction maps to provide accurate assessments of cloud mass and structure and compare these with…
Observations of the interstellar medium are key to deciphering the physical processes regulating star formation in galaxies. However, observational uncertainties and detection limits can bias the interpretation unless carefully modeled.…
We present a study of a star formation prescription in which star formation efficiency depends on local gas density and turbulent velocity dispersion, as suggested by direct simulations of SF in turbulent giant molecular clouds (GMCs). We…
The conversion of gas into stars is a fundamental process in astrophysics and cosmology. Stars are known to form from the gravitational collapse of dense clumps in interstellar molecular clouds, and it has been proposed that the resulting…
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…
The star-forming ability of a molecular cloud depends on the fraction of gas it can cycle into the dense-phase. Consequently, one of the crucial questions in reconciling star-formation in clouds is to understand the factors that control…
State-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation have reached the point at which their outcomes result in galaxies with ever more realism. Still, the employed sub-grid models include several free parameters such…
The inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way harbours gas densities, pressures, velocity dispersions, an interstellar radiation field and a cosmic ray ionisation rate orders of magnitude higher than the disc; akin to the environment found…
One of the key questions in understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies is how starbursts affect the assembly of stellar populations in galaxies over time. We define a burst indicator ($\eta$), which compares a galaxy's star…
We present the results of a numerical study designed to address the question of whether there is a column density threshold for star formation within molecular clouds. We have simulated a large number of different clouds, with volume and…
I discuss recent theoretical work on the formation and evolution of galaxies paying particular attention to the ability of current models to make detailed comparisons with observations of the galaxy population both nearby and at high…