Related papers: Star Formation in Turbulent Interstellar Gas
Star complexes are the largest globular regions of star formation in galaxies. If there is a spiral density wave, nuclear ring, tidal arm, or other well-defined stellar structure, then gravitational instabilities in the gaseous component…
Starburst galaxies are powered by massive stars. These stars dominate the heating and enrichment with heavy elements of the interstellar medium, gas out of which new stars form. Thus, high-mass stars, and in consequence starburst galaxies,…
Stars form when filaments and dense cores in molecular clouds fragment and collapse due to self-gravity. In the most basic analyses of gravitational stability, the competition between self-gravity and thermal pressure sets the critical…
Self-gravity and stellar feedback are capable of driving turbulence and transporting mass and angular momentum in disk galaxies, but the balance between them is not well understood. In the previous paper in this series, we showed that…
Recent surveys of star forming regions have shown that most stars, and probably all massive stars, are born in dense stellar clusters. The mechanism by which a molecular cloud fragments to form several hundred to thousands of individual…
We study the large-scale triggering of star formation in galaxies. We find that the largest mass-scale not stabilized by rotation, a well defined quantity in a rotating system and with clear dynamical meaning, strongly correlates with the…
The slow rotation of some young stars and the extreme rotation periods of some Ap stars have so far defied explanation. The absence of sufficiently efficient braking mechanisms for newly formed stars points to the star formation process…
The magnetic field of molecular clouds (MCs) plays an important role in the process of star formation: it determins the statistical properties of supersonic turbulence that controls the fragmentation of MCs, controls the angular momentum…
Gravitationally-bound clusters that survive gas removal represent an unusual mode of star formation in the Milky Way and similar spiral galaxies. While forming, they can be distinguished observationally from unbound star formation by their…
Galactic winds from star-forming galaxies are crucial to the process of galaxy formation and evolution, regulating star formation, shaping the stellar mass function and the mass-metallicity relation, and enriching the intergalactic medium…
We demonstrate that the high pressure of the hot intracluster medium (ICM) can trigger the collapse of molecular clouds in a spiral galaxy, leading to a burst of star formation in the clouds. Our hydrodynamical simulations show that the…
Gravity drives the collapse of molecular clouds through which stars form, yet the exact role of gravity in cloud collapse remains a complex issue. Studies point to a picture where star formation occurs in clusters. In a typical, pc-sized…
The physical conditions in molecular clouds control the nature and rate of star formation, with consequences for planet formation and galaxy evolution. The focus of this review is on the conditions that characterize regions of star…
The formation of stellar clusters dictates the pace at which galaxies evolve, and solving the question of their formation will undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of the Universe as a whole. While it is well known that star clusters…
Massive stars drive the evolution of the interstellar medium through their radiative and mechanical energy input. After their birth, they form bubbles of hot gas surrounded by a dense shell. Traditionally, the formation of bubbles is…
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…
Galaxies' interstellar media (ISM) are observed to be supersonically-turbulent, but the ultimate power source that drives turbulent motion remains uncertain. The two dominant models are that the turbulence is driven by star formation…
We propose to interpret the stellar IMF as a property of the turbulence in the star--forming gas. Gravitationally unstable density enhancements in the turbulent flow collapse and form stars. Their mass distribution can be derived…
Non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is the dominant process. We investigate the effect of magnetic fields (ideal and non-ideal) and turbulence (sub- and transsonic) on the formation of protostars by following the gravitational collapse of…
We study the impact of stellar winds and supernovae on the multi-phase interstellar medium using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations carried out with FLASH. The selected galactic disc region has a size of (500 pc)$^2$ x $\pm$ 5 kpc…