Related papers: Phases and Structures of Interstellar Gas
We explore the possibly important influence of cooled interstellar gas on the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies. Interstellar cooling is described by a parameterized sink term in the equation of continuity. Parameters that give the…
{It is well established that the atomic interstellar hydrogen is filling the galaxies and constitutes the building blocks of molecular clouds.} {To understand the formation and the evolution of molecular clouds, it is necessary to…
Identifying the processes that determine the initial mass function of stars (IMF) is a fundamental problem in star formation theory. One of the major uncertainties is the exact chemical state of the star forming gas and its influence on the…
Matter and dark matter in galaxies represent two main components linked by the gravitational interaction. Collisions of galaxies may create an offset between the centers of mass of these components. Ignoring internal dynamics of particles…
Recent work suggests blue ellipticals form in mergers and migrate quickly from the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies to the red sequence of passively evolving galaxies, perhaps as a result of black hole feedback. Such rapid reddening of…
Star formation in galaxies is inefficient, and understanding how star formation is regulated in galaxies is one of the most fundamental challenges of contemporary astrophysics. Radiative cooling, feedback from supernovae and active galactic…
The thermal properties of star-forming clouds have an important influence on how they fragment into stars, and it is suggested in this paper that the low-mass stellar IMF, which appears to be almost universal, is determined largely by the…
The observed rapid onset of star formation in molecular clouds requires rapid formation of dense fragments which can collapse individually before being overtaken by global gravitationally-driven flows. Many previous investigations have…
Stars in galaxies form in giant molecular clouds that coalesce when the atomic hydrogen is converted into molecules. There are currently two dominant models for what property of the galactic disk determines its molecular fraction: either…
The fractal structure of star formation on large scales in disk galaxies is studied using the size distribution function of stellar aggregates in kpc-scale star fields. Achival HST images of 10 galaxies are Gaussian smoothed to define the…
We review what is currently known about the structure of interstellar material in the solar neighborhood, emphasizing how observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have improved our understanding of how interstellar gas is…
Numerous studies have investigated the role of thermal instability in regulating the phase transition between the cold cloudy and warm diffuse medium of the interstellar medium. Considerable interest has also been devoted in investigating…
The evolution of galaxies results from a combination of internal and external processes. The star formation is an internal process transforming cold and dense cores of molecular clouds to stars. It may be triggered internally by expanding…
The interstellar medium is a multiphase gas in which turbulent support is as important as thermal pressure. Sustaining this configuration requires both continuous turbulent stirring and continuous radiative cooling to match the decay of…
Thermal instability (TI) plays a crucial role in the formation of multiphase structures and their dynamics in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and is a leading theory for cold cloud creation in various astrophysical environments. In this paper…
(Abridged) The building blocks of galaxies are star clusters. These form with low-star formation efficiencies and, consequently, loose a large part of their stars that expand outwards once the residual gas is expelled by the action of the…
In the multi-scale view of the star formation process the material flows from large molecular clouds down to clumps and cores. In this paradigm it is still unclear if it is gravity or turbulence that drives the observed supersonic…
We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self…
We consider the physical conditions of the neutral medium within, and in the environments of, galaxies. The basic physical and morphological properties of the neutral medium within galaxy disks are now quite well-constrained. Systematic…
The gas-to-dust mass ratios found for interstellar dust within the Solar System, versus values determined astronomically for the cloud around the Solar System, suggest that large and small interstellar grains have separate histories, and…