Related papers: Star-Forming Complexes in Galaxies
We present numerical simulations of the passage of clumpy gas through a galactic spiral shock, the subsequent formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and the triggering of star formation. The spiral shock forms dense clouds while…
The universe's largest galaxies reside at the centers of galaxy clusters and are embedded in hot gas that, if left unchecked, would cool prodigiously and create many more new stars than are actually observed. Cooling can be regulated by…
The central regions of galaxies show the presence of massive black holes and/or dense stellar systems. The question about their modes of formation is still under debate. A likely explanation of the formation of the central dense stellar…
Turbulent fragmentation determines where and when protostellar cores form, and how they contract and grow in mass from the surrounding cloud material. This process is investigated, using numerical models of self-gravitating molecular cloud…
To understand the formation of stellar groups, one must first document carefully the birth pattern within real clusters and associations. In this study of Taurus-Auriga, we combine pre-main-sequence ages from our own evolutionary tracks…
We argue that rich star clusters take at least several local dynamical times to form, and so are quasi-equilibrium structures during their assembly. Observations supporting this conclusion include morphologies of star-forming clumps,…
We present a high-resolution simulation of globular cluster formation in a galaxy merger. For the first time in such a simulation, individual star clusters are directly identified and followed on their orbits. We quantitatively compare star…
Their ubiquity and extreme densities make star clusters probes of prime importance of galaxy evolution. Old globular clusters keep imprints of the physical conditions of their assembly in the early Universe, and younger stellar objects,…
Large self-gravitating stellar systems share with correlated liquids in condensed matter physics a pattern of hierarchical density variations. While it takes the microscopic time resolution to discern the correlated dynamics of the critical…
Numerical simulations of a Milky Way-size galaxy demonstrate that globular clusters with the properties similar to observed can form naturally at z > 3 in the concordance Lambda-CDM cosmology. The clusters in our model form in the strongly…
Stars are born in dense molecular filaments irrespective of their mass. Compression of the ISM by shocks cause filament formation in molecular clouds. Observations show that a massive star cluster formation occurs where the peak of gas…
Recently, we have shown that if the ISM is governed by super-sonic turbulent flows, the excursion-set formalism can be used to calculate the statistics of self-gravitating objects over a wide range of scales. On the largest self-gravitating…
Observations suggest that star formation occurs in only one or two crossing times for a range of scales spanning a factor of 1000. These observations include (1) measurements of embedded cluster ages in comparison with the cloud core…
Star formation is a fundamental process for galactic evolution. One issue over the last several decades has been determining whether star formation is induced by external triggers or is self-regulated in a closed system. The role of an…
A review of gravitational and hydrodynamical processes during formation of clusters and evolution of galaxies is given. Early, at the advent of N-body computer simulations, the importance of tidal fields in galaxy encounters has been…
We investigate the triggering of star formation in clouds that form in Galactic scale flows as the ISM passes through spiral shocks. We use the Lagrangian nature of SPH simulations to trace how the star forming gas is gathered into…
Star formation is one of the least understood processes in cosmic evolution. It is difficult to formulate a general theory for star formation in part because of the wide range of physical processes involved. The interstellar gas out of…
Recent simulations and observations suggest that star clusters form via the assembling of smaller sub-clusters. Because of their short relaxation time, sub-clusters experience core collapse much earlier than virialized solo-clusters, which…
We numerically investigate dynamical and chemical properties of star clusters (open and globular clusters, and ``super star clusters'', SSC) formed in interacting/merging galaxies. The investigation is two-fold: (1) large-scale…
I briefly review some measures of star formation rates in galaxies and discuss their respective uncertainties before outlining the range of star formation rates encountered in starbursts from isolated dwarf through massive gas-rich…