Related papers: How Galactic Environment affects the Dynamical Sta…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of star clusters during their formation, assuming that they are born from a turbulent starless clump of a given mass that is embedded within a parent self-gravitating molecular cloud characterized by a…
We take advantage of an analytic model of galaxy formation coupled to the merger tree of an N-body simulation to study the roles of environment and stellar mass in the quenching of galaxies. The model has been originally set in order to…
On average molecular clouds convert only a small fraction epsilon_ff of their mass into stars per free-fall time, but differing star formation theories make contrasting claims for how this low mean efficiency is achieved. To test these…
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,…
Observations of nearby molecular clouds detect "shells", which are likely caused by winds from young main sequence stars. However, the progenitors of these observed features are not well characterized and the mass-loss rates inferred from…
Observations of external galaxies and of local star-forming clouds in the Milky Way have suggested a variety of star formation laws, i.e., simple direct relations between the column density of star formation (Sigma_SFR: the amount of gas…
We investigate star formation at very early evolutionary phases in five massive clouds in the inner 500 pc of the Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone. Using interferometer observations of H$_2$O masers and ultra-compact H II regions, we find…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
Most massive galaxies host a supermassive black hole at their centre. Matter accretion creates an active galactic nucleus (AGN), forming a relativistic particle wind. The wind heats and pushes the interstellar medium, producing…
In order to interpret observations influenced by dust and to perform detailed modeling of the observable characteristics of dust-producing or dust-containing objects, knowledge of the micro-physical properties of relevant dust species are…
Molecular hydrogen (H2) is the primary component of the reservoirs of cold, dense gas that fuel star formation in our galaxy. While the H2 abundance is ultimately regulated by physical processes operating on small scales in the interstellar…
Stars 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 and most massive…
We compare the molecular cloud properties in sub-galactic regions of two galaxies, barred spiral NGC 1313, which is forming many massive clusters, and flocculent spiral NGC 7793, which is forming significantly fewer massive clusters despite…
Star-forming regions presenting a density gradient experience a higher star formation rate than if they were of uniform density. We refer to the ratio between the star formation rate of a spherical centrally-concentrated gas clump and the…
One of the most important and well-established empirical results in astronomy is the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation between the density of interstellar gas and the rate at which that gas forms stars. A tight correlation between these…
Presence of dust in galaxies removes half or more of the stellar energy from the UV-optical budget of the Universe and has profound impact on our understanding of how galaxies evolve. Measures of opacity in local galaxies are reviewed…
Stars form within dense cores composed of both gas and dust within molecular clouds. However, despite the crucial role that dust plays in the star formation process, its dynamics is frequently overlooked, with the common assumption being a…
The star formation efficiency (SFE) measures the proportion of molecular gas converted into stars, while the star formation rate (SFR) indicates the rate at which gas is transformed into stars. Here we propose such a model in the framework…
We review progress in numerical simulations of star cluster formation. These simulations involve the bottom-up assembly of clusters through hierarchical mergers, which produces a fractal stellar distribution at young (~0.5 Myr) ages. The…
Observations show that molecular gas in spiral galaxies is organized into a network of interconnected systems through the gravitational coupling of multi-scale hub-filament structures. Building on this picture, we model molecular gas in the…