Related papers: Star formation thresholds and galaxy edges: why an…
Spiral galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the role of star formation in galaxy evolution and to test various theoretical star formation schemes. I review some recent relevant work on the evolution of spiral galaxies. Detailed…
(abridged) We have analyzed the properties of the rest-frame optical emission lines of a sample of 53 intensely star forming galaxies at z=1.3 to 2.7 observed with SINFONI on the ESO-VLT. We find large velocity dispersions in the lines,…
We have investigated how the incidence of star-forming galaxies varies with the environment using a volume-limited sample of nearby galaxy spectra extracted from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. The environment is characterized by the local…
The interstellar thick disks of galaxies contain not only gas, but significant quantities of dust. Most of our knowledge of extraplanar dust in disk galaxies comes from direct broadband optical imaging of these systems, wherein the dust is…
Using radiation-hydrodynamic cosmological simulations, we present a detailed ($0.1$ pc resolution), physically motivated portrait of a typical-mass dwarf galaxy before the epoch of reionization, resolving the formation and evolution of star…
We propose a simple theoretical model for star formation in which the local star formation rate in a galaxy is determined by three factors. First, the interplay between the interstellar radiation field and molecular self-shielding…
Observations of turbulent velocity dispersions in the HI component of galactic disks show a characteristic floor in galaxies with low star formation rates and within individual galaxies the dispersion profiles decline with radius. We carry…
Galaxy evolution during the last 9 Gyr is discussed. It can be traced back from well known present-day galaxies or directly observed for galaxies at different look back times. This requires clear and consistently matched selection criteria…
Are magnetic fields important in primordial star formation? Assuming that star formation occurs via an accretion disk that is turbulent, initially because of local gravitational instability, we calculate the disk structure for realistic…
We study the self-consistent, linear response of a galactic disc to non-axisymmetric perturbations in the vertical direction as due to a tidal encounter, and show that the density distribution near the disc mid-plane has a strong impact on…
We examine the hypothesis that hydrostatic pressure alone determines the ratio of atomic to molecular gas averaged over a particular radius in disk galaxies. The hypothesis implies that the transition radius, the location where the ratio is…
Rotation curves constrain a galaxy's underlying mass density profile, under the assumption that the observed rotation produces a centripetal force that exactly balances the inward force of gravity. However, most rotation curves are measured…
In this paper, we calculate simulated scattered light images of a circumstellar disk in which a planet is forming by gravitational instability. The simulated images bear no correlation to the vertically integrated surface density of the…
The relationship between star formation and infrared emission in galaxies will be investigated. If galaxies were simple objects and young stars were completely covered with dust, then all the absorbed light of the young stars would be…
We propose that turbulent heating, wave pressure and gas exchanges between different regions of disks play a dominant role in determining the preferred, quasi-equilibrium, self-similar states of gas disks on large-scales. We present simple…
Studies by Lada (2010) and Heiderman (2010) have suggested that star formation mostly occurs above a threshold in gas surface density Sigma of Sigma_c = 120 Msun pc^{-2} (A_K = 0.8). Heiderman infer a threshold by combining low-mass…
We derive the evolution equations describing a thin axisymmetric disk of gas and stars with an arbitrary rotation curve that is kept in a state of marginal gravitational instability and energy equilibrium due to the balance between energy…
We performed 3-dimensional N-body/SPH simulations to study how mass resolution and other model parameters such as the star formation efficiency parameter, C* and the threshold density, nth affect structures of the galactic gaseous/stellar…
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…
Over the past decade increasingly robust estimates of the dense molecular gas content in galaxy populations between redshift 0 and the peak of cosmic galaxy/star formation from redshift 1-3 have become available. This rapid progress has…