Related papers: Small-Scale Mixing of the Elements
Both simulations and observations indicate that stars form in filamentary, hierarchically clustered associations, most of which disperse into their galactic field once feedback destroys their parent clouds. However, during their early…
I present an overview of the hierarchy of structures existing in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the possible mechanisms that cause the fragmentation of one level into the next, with the formation of stars as its last step. Within this…
Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory of these…
We present hydrodynamic simulations of a major merger of disk galaxies, and study the ISM dynamics and star formation properties. High spatial and mass resolutions of 12pc and 4x10^4 M_sol allow to resolve cold and turbulent gas clouds…
We introduce a stochastic halo formation model to compute the early chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM) of the halo. Contrary to 1-zone chemical evolution models, we are able to resolve local inhomogeneities in the ISM…
The wavelength dependences of interstellar extinction and polarization, supplemented by observed elemental abundances and the spectrum of infrared emission from dust heated by starlight, strongly constrain dust models. One dust model that…
One of the important consequences of a newly discovered secular dynamical evolution process of spiral galaxies (Zhang 1996,1998,1999) is that the orbiting disk matter receives energy injection each time it crosses the spiral density wave…
The growing evidence pointing at core-collapse supernovae as large dust producers makes young massive stellar clusters ideal laboratories to study the evolution of dust immersed into a hot plasma. Here we address the stochastic injection of…
The early stages of star formation are closely related to the ambient conditions in the interstellar medium. Important questions such as dust abundance, size distribution, temperature distribution, fraction of molecular gas, fraction of…
We present the main features in the evolution of the gas pressure in star forming regions, from the formation of the parental cloud to the moment when the region is pressurized by interacting stellar winds. The main processes for cloud…
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
Observations give evidences of the presence of metals in the intergalactic medium (IGM). The stars responsible for transforming hydrogen and helium into more complex atoms do not form outside the galaxies in the standard scenario of galaxy…
Star formation occurs in hierarchical patterns in both space and time. Galaxies form large regions on the scale of the interstellar Jeans length and these large regions apparently fragment into giant molecular clouds and cloud cores in a…
In this paper we address the question whether star formation is driven by local processes or the large scale environment. To do so, we investigate star formation in collisional debris where the gravitational potential well and velocity…
We consider the role of diffusion in the redistribution of elements in the hot interstellar medium (ISM) of early-type galaxies. It is well known that gravitational sedimentation can affect significantly the abundances of helium and heavy…
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 observational studies of the age distribution of star clusters in nearby merging galaxies and starburst (SB) galaxies indicate a premature death of the young clusters. The fate of an evolving star cluster crucially depends of its gas…
The lack of observations of abundance patterns originating in pair-instability supernovae has been a long-standing problem in relation to the first stars. This class of supernovae is expected to have an abundance pattern with a strong…
Young stars form on a wide range of scales, producing aggregates and clusters with various degrees of gravitational self-binding. The loose aggregates have a hierarchical structure in both space and time that resembles interstellar…
Substellar atmospheres are observed to be irregularly variable for which the formation of dust clouds is the most promising candidate explanation. The atmospheric gas is convectively unstable and, last but not least, colliding convective…