Related papers: Summary: Modes of Star Formation
The formation of a star is a dynamic process fed by the gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud core. Theoretical models and observations suggest that the majority of this infalling material settles into a protoplanetary disk before…
The history of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is found in the spatial distribution, kinematics, age and chemical abundance distributions of long-lived stars. From this fossil record one can in principle extract the star…
This article will briefly review the theory of star formation (SF) and its development using observations. This is very relevant in the present context since planet formation appears to be a byproduct of SF, and the whole question of life…
I briefly review recent observations of regions forming low mass stars. The discussion is cast in the form of seven questions that have been partially answered, or at least illuminated, by new data. These are the following: where do stars…
Star-forming galaxies spend most of their lifetimes on the star-forming main sequence, which establishes a tight empirical and statistical relation between stellar mass and star-formation rate. Occasional episodes of rapid star formation…
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…
Motivated by recent progress in the study of early-type galaxies owing to technological advances, the launch of new space telescopes and large ground-based surveys, we attempt a short review of our current understanding of the recent…
We use long-slit spectroscopy from Moran et al. to study the radial dependence of the recent star formation histories of nearby galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^10M_sun. We fit stellar population models to the combination of…
Stellar Populations are the fossil record of Galactic evolution. Interpretation of this record in the Local Group allows one to determine reliably the dominant physics controlling the evolution of those galaxies which are typical of the…
Observations of the dust and gas around embedded stellar clusters reveal some of the processes involved in their formation and evolution. Large scale mass infall with rates dM/dt=4e-4 solar masses/year is found to be disrupted on small…
I review theoretical models of star formation and how they apply across the stellar mass spectrum. Several distinct theories are under active study for massive star formation, especially Turbulent Core Accretion, Competitive Accretion and…
I review recent observational progress concerning the evolution of the morphological distribution of galaxies in the rich cluster environment and in the faint field population. By coupling HST imagery with ground-based spectroscopic…
Many, possibly most, stars form in binary and higher-order multiple systems. Therefore, the properties and frequency of binary systems provide strong clues to the star-formation process, and constraints on star-formation models. However,…
If we are to develop a comprehensive and predictive theory of galaxy formation and evolution, it is essential that we obtain an accurate assessment of how and when galaxies assemble their stellar populations, and how this assembly varies…
One of the outstanding puzzles about star formation is why it proceeds so slowly. Giant molecular clouds convert only a few percent of their gas into stars per free-fall time, and recent observations show that this low star formation rate…
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…
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…
To address the problem concerning the early formation of stars in massive galaxies, we present the results of a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation which includes a physical description of starbursts triggered by galaxy interactions.…
The realization that most stars form in clusters, raises the question of whether star/planet formation are influenced by the cluster environment. The stellar density in the most prevalent clusters is the key factor here. Whether dominant…
Starbursts are episodes of intense star-formation in the central regions of galaxies, and are the sites of roughly 25% of the high-mass star-formation in the local universe. In this contribution I review the role starbursts play in the…