Related papers: Star Formation Thresholds in Galactic Disks
We investigate star formation at very early evolutionary phases in five massive clouds in the inner 500 pc of the Galaxy, the Central Molecular Zone. Using interferometer observations of H$_2$O masers and ultra-compact H II regions, we find…
We present adaptive optics assisted integral field spectroscopy of nine Halpha-selected galaxies at z=0.84--2.23 selected from the HiZELS narrow-band survey. Our observations map the star-formation and kinematics of these representative…
The large columns of dusty gas enshrouding and fuelling star-formation in young, massive stellar clusters may render such systems optically thick to radiation well into the infrared. This raises the prospect that both "direct" radiation…
We study the global star formation law - the relation between the gas and star formation rate (SFR) in a sample of 130 local galaxies with infrared (IR) luminosities spanning over three orders of magnitude (10^9-10^12 Lsun), which includes…
We explore mechanisms for the regulation of star formation in dwarf galaxies. We concentrate primarily on a sample in the Virgo cluster, which has HI and blue total photometry, for which we collected H$\alpha$ data at the Wise Observatory.…
How do stars manage to form within low-density, HI-dominated gas? Such environments provide a laboratory for studying star formation with physical conditions distinct from starbursts and the metal-rich disks of spiral galaxies where most…
We estimate a characteristic timescale for star formation in the spiral arms of disk galaxies, going from atomic hydrogen (HI) to dust-enshrouded massive stars. Drawing on high-resolution HI data from The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey and…
The recent identification of one or two sub-parsec disks of young, massive stars orbiting the ~4e6 solar mass black hole Sgr A* has prompted an "in-situ" scenario for star formation in disks of gas formed from a cloud captured from the…
We present results concerning the internal structure and kinematics of disk galaxies formed in cosmologically motivated simulations. The calculations include dark matter, gas dynamics, radiative cooling, star formation, supernova feedback…
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…
We investigate the nature of the star formation law at low gas surface densities using a sample of 19 low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies with existing HI maps in the literature, UV imaging from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite,…
Stars form by gravoturbulent fragmentation of interstellar gas clouds. The supersonic turbulence ubiquitously observed in Galactic molecular gas generates strong density fluctuations with gravity taking over in the densest and most massive…
Galaxy disk formation must incorporate the multiphase nature of the interstellar medium. The resulting two-phase structure is generated and maintained by gravitational instability and supernova energy input, which yield a source of…
Most stars form in highly clustered environments within molecular clouds, but eventually disperse into the distributed stellar field population. Exactly how the stellar distribution evolves from the embedded stage into gas-free associations…
In a new simple model I reconcile two contradictory views on the factors that determine the rate at which molecular clouds form stars -- internal structure vs. external, environmental influences -- providing a unified picture for the…
We present a simple model for the number distribution of maximally star-forming clumps in rotating disk galaxies, at high-$z$ with high gas surface densities. By combining assumptions surrounding marginal stability of disks against…
Star formation remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Numerical studies of large-scale structure simulations cannot resolve the whole process and their approach usually assumes that only gas denser than a typical threshold can host…
The formation and evolution of galactic disks is particularly important for understanding how galaxies form and evolve, and the cause of the variety in which they appear to us. Ongoing large surveys, made possible by new instrumentation at…
We present integrated H alpha measurements obtained from imaging observations of 98 late-type galaxies, primarily selected in the Coma supercluster. These data, combined with H alpha photometry from the literature, include a magnitude…
Quantification of the Galaxy's star formation history involves both the duration and the rate of formation, with these parameters being known with different precision for different populations. The early rate of star formation is knowable…