Related papers: Gas accretion at high redshift: cold flows all the…
The existence of fast moving, cold gas ubiquitously observed in galactic winds is theoretically puzzling, since the destruction time of cold gas is much smaller than its acceleration time. In previous work, we showed that cold gas can…
Supermassive black holes in galaxy centres can grow by the accretion of gas, liberating energy that might regulate star formation on galaxy-wide scales. The nature of the gaseous fuel reservoirs that power black hole growth is nevertheless…
We study the properties of gas inside and around galaxy haloes as a function of radius and halo mass, focussing mostly on z=2, but also showing some results for z=0. For this purpose, we use a suite of large cosmological, hydrodynamical…
We present a model to understand the redshift evolution of the UV luminosity and stellar mass functions of Lyman Break Galaxies. Our approach is based on the assumption that the luminosity and stellar mass of a galaxy is related to its dark…
Gas infall and accretion play a fundamental role in galaxy formation, and several processes of accretion are reviewed. In particular the cold accretion may solve to some extent the angular momentum problem in disk formation, while it is…
Several active galaxies show strong evidence for fast ($v_{\rm out} \sim 1000~{\rm km\,s}^{-1}$) massive ($\dot{M} =$ several $\times 1000~\msun\,{\rm yr}^{-1}$) gas outflows. Such outflows are expected on theoretical grounds once the…
Short-lived intermittent phases of super-critical (super-Eddington) growth, coupled with star formation via positive feedback, may account for early growth of massive black holes (MBH) and coevolution with their host spheroids. We estimate…
We present the first detailed dissection of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of massive starburst galaxies at z > 2. Our target is a submillimeter galaxy (SMG) at z = 2.674 that has a star formation rate of 1200 $M_\odot$/yr and a molecular…
Observations of highly rotationally supported gas discs in high redshift ($z$ > 3) star-forming galaxies challenge our understanding of galaxy formation, as the prevailing view holds that galaxies in the early universe are dynamically hot…
It has recently been shown that the abundance of cold neutral gas may follow a similar evolution as the star formation history. This is physically motivated, since stars form out of this component of the neutral gas and if the case, would…
Continued star formation over the lifetime of a galaxy suggests that low metalicity gas is steadily flowing in from the circumgalactic medium. Also, cosmological simulations of large-scale structure formation imply that gas is accreted onto…
In order to understand galaxy evolution through cosmic times it is critical to derive the properties of the molecular gas content of galaxies, i.e. the material out of which stars ultimately form. The last decade has seen rapid progress in…
We present a set of new analytic solutions aimed at self-consistently describing the spatially-averaged time evolution of the gas, stellar, metal, and dust content in an individual starforming galaxy hosted within a dark halo of given mass…
We use FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the co-evolution between Milky Way-size galaxies and their host dark matter halos. We find that the formation of these galaxies follows a two-phase pattern, with an…
A crucial question in galaxy formation is what role new accretion has in star formation. Theoretical models have predicted a wide range of correlation strengths between halo accretion and galaxy star formation. Previously, we presented a…
The build-up of galaxies is regulated by a complex interplay between gravitational collapse, galaxy merging and feedback related to AGN and star formation. The energy released by these processes has to dissipate for gas to cool, condense,…
We combine HI 21cm observations of the Milky Way, M31, and the local galaxy population with QSO absorption-line measurements to geometrically model the three-dimensional distribution of infalling neutral gas clouds (HVCs) in the extended…
Dust growth via accretion of gas species has been proposed as the dominant process to increase the amount of dust in galaxies. We show here that this hypothesis encounters severe difficulties that make it unfit to explain the observed UV…
Using cosmological simulations, we address the interplay between structure and star formation in high-redshift galaxies via the evolution of surface density profiles. Our sample consists of 26 galaxies evolving in the redshift range…
Recent observations with the IRAM instruments have allowed to explore the star formation efficiency in galaxies as a function of redshift, in detecting and mapping their molecular gas. Some galaxies stand on what is called the "main…