Related papers: Astrochemistry and Observations
The increasing number of observations towards different environments in the Milky Way, as well as theoretical and experimental works, are improving our knowledge of the astrochemical processes in the interstellar medium (ISM). In this…
The understanding and modeling of the structure and evolution of stars is based on statistical physics as well as on hydrodynamics. Today, a precise identification and proper description of the physical processes at work in stellar…
In the past years we have made great efforts to reduce the statistical and systematic uncertainties in stellar parameter and chemical abundance determinations of early B-type stars. Both the construction of robust model atoms for non-LTE…
Some recent results are presented about high redshift molecular absorption lines, namely about chemical abundances of elements, and in particular of water and molecular oxygen. Excitation temperatures of several molecules are found lower…
The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…
Major improvements in models of chemically peculiar stars have been achieved in the past few years. With these new models it has been possible to test quantitatively some of the processes involved in the formation of abundance anomalies and…
Laboratory experiments play a key role in deciphering the chemistry of the interstellar medium (ISM) and the role that product complex organic molecules (COMs) may play in the origins of life. However, to date, most studies in experimental…
We are just starting to understand the physical processes driving the dramatic change in cosmic star-formation rate between $z\sim 2$ and the present day. A quantity directly linked to star formation is the molecular gas density, which…
Star formation is inefficient. Recent advances in numerical simulations and theoretical models of molecular clouds show that the combined effects of interstellar turbulence, magnetic fields and stellar feedback can explain the low…
Recent deep millimeter-wave surveys attempt to measure the carbon monoxide (CO) luminosity function and mean molecular gas density through blind detections of CO emission lines. While the cosmic star formation rate density is now…
Studies of molecular clouds and young stars near the sun have provided invaluable insights into the process of star formation. Indeed, much of our physical understanding of this topic has been derived from such studies. Perhaps the two most…
The search for complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM) has revealed species of ever greater complexity. This search relies on the progress made in the laboratory to characterize their rotational spectra. Our understanding…
FIR and submm observations have established the fundamental role of dust-obscured star formation in the assembly of stellar mass over the past 12 billion years. At z between 2 and 4, the bulk of star formation is enshrouded in dust, and…
The chemical abundances of metal-poor stars provide a great deal of information regarding the individual nucleosynthetic processes that created the observed elements and the overall process of chemical enrichment of the galaxy since the…
Cool, evolved stars are the main source of chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM), and understanding their mass loss and structure offers a unique opportunity to study the cycle of matter in the Universe. Pulsation,…
Constraining the physical and chemical evolution of molecular clouds is essential to our understanding of star formation. These investigations often necessitate knowledge of some local representative number density of the gas along the line…
Large-scale surveys of the Perseus molecular cloud have provided many clues as to the processes occurring during star formation. Here, analysis of both column density maps and kinematic data (maps and pointed data) are discussed and…
I describe recent progress in terms of 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres and 3D line formation and their applications to stellar abundance analyses of late-type stars. Such 3D studies remove the free parameters inherent in classical 1D…
The good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard $\Lambda$CDM theory gives us hope that this will become a lasting foundation for cosmology. After briefly reviewing the current status of the key…
The measurement of chemical abundances in planetary nebulae in nearby galaxies is now relatively straightforward. The challenge is to use these chemical abundances to infer the chemical evolution of their host galaxies. At this point, our…