Related papers: Star formation across cosmic time
Supernovae are the most energetic stellar events and influence the interstellar medium by their gasdynamics and energetics. By this, both also affect the star formation positively and negatively. In this paper, we review the development of…
We examine how the atomic and molecular gas components of galaxies evolve to higher redshifts using the semi-analytic galaxy formation models of Fu et al. (2010) in which we track the surface density profiles of gas in disks. We adopt two…
The concept that stars form in the modern era began some 60 years ago with the key observation of expanding OB associations. Now we see that these associations are an intermediate scale in a cascade of hierarchical structures that begins on…
To understand the formation of stellar groups, one must first document carefully the birth pattern within real clusters and associations. In this study of Taurus-Auriga, we combine pre-main-sequence ages from our own evolutionary tracks…
We describe how star formation is expected to proceed in the early metal-free Universe, focusing on the very first generations of stars. We then discuss how the star formation process may change as the effects of metallicity, external…
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) is a complex, multi-phase system, where the history of the stars occurs. The processes of birth and death of stars are strongly coupled to the dynamics of the ISM. The observed chaotic and diffusive motions of…
Star formation is intimately linked to the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds. Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding cloud…
Turbulence, self-gravity, and cooling convert most of the interstellar medium into cloudy structures that form stars. Turbulence compresses the gas into clouds directly and it moves pre-existing clouds around passively when there are…
The cosmic star formation rate density first increases with time towards a pronounced peak 10 Gyrs ago (or z=1-2) and then slows down, dropping by more than a factor 10 since z=1. The processes at the origin of the star formation quenching…
In our grid of multiphase chemical evolution models (Moll\'a & D\'iaz, 2005), star formation in the disk occurs in two steps: first, molecular gas forms, and then stars are created by cloud-cloud collisions or interactions of massive stars…
Star formation lies at the center of a web of processes that drive cosmic evolution: generation of radiant energy, synthesis of elements, formation of planets, and development of life. Decades of observations have yielded a variety of…
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,…
From studying the cosmic microwave background, we know our Universe started out very simple. It was by and large homogeneous and isotropic, with small fluctuations that can be described by linear perturbation theory. In stark contrast, the…
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…
Stars in galaxies form in giant molecular clouds that coalesce when the atomic hydrogen is converted into molecules. There are currently two dominant models for what property of the galactic disk determines its molecular fraction: either…
Observations show that galaxies and their interstellar media are pervaded by strong magnetic fields with energies in the diffuse component being at least comparable to the thermal and even as large or larger than the turbulent energy. Such…
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 past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Current observational results in our galaxy provide a complex physical and chemical…
An overview is presented of the main properties of the interstellar medium. Evidence is summarized that the interstellar medium is highly turbulent, driven on different length scales by various energetic processes. Large-scale turbulence…
Even today in our Galaxy, stars form from gas cores in a variety of environments, which may affect the properties of resulting star and planetary systems. Here we study the role of pressure, parameterized via ambient clump mass surface…