Related papers: Efficiency of the dynamical mechanism
Massive stars form in clusters within self-gravitating molecular clouds. The size scale of these clusters is sufficiently large that non-thermal, or turbulent, motions of the gas must be taken into account when considering their formation.…
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,…
The currently available empirical evidence on the star formation processes in the extreme, high-pressure environments induced by galaxy encounters, mostly based on high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope imaging observations, strongly…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
Star clusters form in dense, hierarchically collapsing gas clouds. Bulk kinetic energy is transformed to turbulence with stars forming from cores fed by filaments. In the most compact regions, stellar feedback is least effective in removing…
Understanding star formation is problematic as it originates in the large scale dynamics of a galaxy but occurs on the small scale of an individual star forming event. This paper presents the first numerical simulations to resolve the star…
Stars and star clusters 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…
Recent observations have revealed massive galactic molecular outflows that may have physical conditions (high gas densities) required to form stars. Indeed, several recent models predict that such massive galactic outflows may ignite star…
Internal dynamical evolution can drive stellar systems into states of high central density. For many star clusters and galactic nuclei, the time scale on which this occurs is significantly less than the age of the universe. As a result,…
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
How starburst clusters form out of molecular clouds is still an open question. In this article, I highlight some of the key constraints in this regard, that one can get from the dynamical evolutionary properties of dense stellar systems. I…
The physical origin of enhanced star formation activity in interacting galaxies remains an open question. Knowing whether starbursts are triggered by an increase of the quantity of dense gas or an increase of the star formation efficiency…
Recent observations indicate that the progenitors of globular clusters (GCs) at high redshifts had high average stellar surface densities above $10^5\, \mathrm{M}_\odot\, \mathrm{pc}^{-2}$. The internal structure and kinematics of the…
We study the shape and evolution of the star formation main sequence in three independently developed semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. We focus, in particular, on the characterization of the model galaxies that are significantly…
The rate of star formation varies between galaxy types and evolves with redshift. Most stars in the universe have formed in episodes of an exceptionally high star-forming activity, commonly called a starburst. We here summarize basic…
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…
Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer in…
We develop a physical model for how galactic disks survive and/or are destroyed in interactions. Based on dynamical arguments, we show gas primarily loses angular momentum to internal torques in a merger. Gas within some characteristic…
A significant fraction of clusters of galaxies are observed to have substructure, which implies that merging between clusters and subclusters is a rather common physical process of cluster formation. It still remains unclear how cluster…
Star formation is enhanced in spiral arms because of a combination of orbit crowding, cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities. The characteristic mass for the instability is 10^7 Msun in gas and 10^5 Msun in stars, and the…