Related papers: Interstellar medium and star formation
An overview of our current understanding of the formation and evolution of star clusters is given, with main emphasis on high-mass clusters. Clusters form deeply embedded within dense clouds of molecular gas. Left-over gas is cleared within…
The cosmic history of star formation is briefly reviewed, starting with the Milky Way and then discussing observations relevant to the closed box and hierarchical build-up models. Observations of local star formation are reviewed for…
The interstellar medium (ISM) is constantly evolving due to unremitting injection of energy in various forms. Energetic radiation transfers energy to the ISM: from the UV photons, emitted by the massive stars, to X- and $\gamma$-ray ones.…
Selected results from recent studies of star formation in galaxies at different stages of interaction are reviewed. Recent results from the Spitzer Space Telescope are highlighted. Ideas on how large-scale driving of star formation in…
Young stars form on a wide range of scales, producing aggregates and clusters with various degrees of gravitational self-binding. The loose aggregates have a hierarchical structure in both space and time that resembles interstellar…
Background: low-mass stars are the dominant product of the star formation process, and they trace star formation over the full range of environments, from isolated globules to clusters in the central molecular zone. In the past two decades,…
High star-formation rate and active galactic nucleus' emission can significantly transform the interstellar medium. In ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, in which the star-formation rate reaches thousands of solar masses per year, the gas…
Star formation in interacting systems may take place in various locations, from the dust--enshrouded core of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies to more unusual places such as the debris of colliding galaxies expelled into the intergalactic…
I review some recent work on low-mass star formation, with an emphasis on theory, basic principles, and unresolved questions. Star formation is both a gravitational fragmentation problem as well as an accretion problem. Molecular cloud…
During the last two decades, the focus of star formation research has shifted from understanding the collapse of a single dense core into a star to studying the formation hundreds to thousands of stars in molecular clouds. In this chapter,…
This review examines the state-of-the-art knowledge of high-mass star and massive cluster formation, gained from ambitious observational surveys, which acknowledge the multi-scale characteristics of these processes. After a brief overview…
Using our recently improved understanding of star cluster physics, we are now within reach of answering a number of fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Star cluster physics has immediate bearing on questions ranging from the…
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…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
Stars do not generally form in isolation. Instead, they form in clusters, and in these clustered environments newborn stars can have profound effects on one another and on their parent gas clouds. Feedback from clustered stars is almost…
Dense pockets of cold, molecular gas precede the formation of stars. During their infancy and later phases of evolution, stars inject considerable energy into the interstellar medium by driving shocks either due to ionising radiation or…
The intergalactic medium - the cosmic gas that fills the great spaces between the galaxies - is affected by processes ranging from quantum fluctuations in the very early universe to radiative emission from newly-formed stars. This gives the…
Understanding the formation of the first stars is one of the frontier topics in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Their emergence signaled the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, leading to a…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
This paper discusses how cosmic gas accretion controls star formation, and summarizes the physical properties expected for the cosmic gas accreted by galaxies. The paper also collects observational evidence for gas accretion sustaining star…