Related papers: The Interstellar Medium
The diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) is an integral part of the evolution of the entire Galaxy. Metals are produced by stars and their abundances are the direct testimony of the history of stellar evolution. However, the interstellar dust…
The cycling of material from the interstellar medium (ISM) into stars and the return of stellar ejecta into the ISM is the engine that drives the "galactic ecology" in normal spirals, a cornerstone in the formation and evolution of galaxies…
Dust grains are an important component of the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies. We present the first direct measurement of the residence times of interstellar dust in the different ISM phases, and of the transition rates between these…
The interstellar medium (ISM) in galaxies is multiphase and cloudy, with stars forming in the very dense, cold gas found in Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs). Simulating the evolution of an entire galaxy, however, is a computational problem…
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…
The interstellar medium feeds both the formation of stars and the growth of black holes, making it a key ingredient in the evolution of galaxies. With the advent of the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), we can now probe…
We examine the pressure of the star-forming interstellar medium (ISM) of Milky-Way sized disk galaxies using fully cosmological SPH+N-body, high resolution simulations. These simulations include explicit treatment of metal-line cooling in…
Galaxies evolve under the influence of gas flows between their interstellar medium and their surrounding gaseous halos known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). The CGM is a major reservoir of galactic baryons and metals, and plays a key…
Stellar and nebular abundance indicators reveal that there exists significant abundance fluctuations in the interstellar medium (ISM) of gas-rich galaxies. It is shown that at the present observed solar level of O/H $\sim 6 \times 10^{-4}$,…
The cloud-scale density, velocity dispersion, and gravitational boundedness of the interstellar medium (ISM) vary within and among galaxies. In turbulent models, these properties play key roles in the ability of gas to form stars. New high…
The interplay between the ISM and the massive stars formed in clusters and, more generally, in recent events of star formation is reviewed via the global effects each has on the other. The pre-existing environment affects the properties of…
The formation of stars, particularly the high-mass star formation, poses several still open questions. Nowadays, thanks to the most modern telescopes and instruments, we are able to observe and analyse many physical and chemical processes…
Most of a galaxy's mass is located out to hundreds of kiloparsecs beyond its stellar component. This diffuse reservoir of gas, the circumgalactic medium (CGM), acts as the interface between a galaxy and the cosmic web that connects…
Until recently, simulations that modeled entire galaxies were restricted to an isothermal or fixed 2- or 3-phase interstellar medium (ISM). This obscured the full role of the ISM in shaping the observed galactic-scale star formation…
The interstellar medium mediates galactic evolution as the reservoir of material for future star formation and the repository of energy and matter output by stellar processes. Canadians have played leading roles in ISM science for decades.…
Pressure balance plays a central role in models of the interstellar medium (ISM), but whether and how pressure balance is realized in a realistic multiphase ISM is not yet well understood. We address this question using a set of FIRE-2…
Interstellar material surrounding an extrasolar planetary system interacts with the stellar wind to form the stellar astrosphere, and regulates the properties of the interplanetary medium and cosmic ray fluxes throughout the system.…
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…
The cold interstellar medium (ISM) as the raw material for star formation is critical to understanding galaxy evolution. It is generally understood that galaxies stop making stars when, in one way or another, they run out of gas. However,…
Galaxy clusters are the largest and most massive bound objects resulting from cosmic hierarchical structure formation. Baryons account for somewhat more than 10% of that mass, with roughly 90% of the baryonic matter distributed throughout…