Related papers: Stars and statistical physics: a teaching experien…
The equilibrium composition of neutron star matter is achieved through weak interactions (direct and inverse beta decays), which proceed on relatively long time scales. If the density of a matter element is perturbed, it will relax to the…
Star formation is thought to be triggered by gravitational collapse of the dense cores of molecular clouds. Angular momentum conservation during the collapse results in the progressive increase of the centrifugal force, which eventually…
Stellar atmospheres separate the hot and dense stellar interiors from the emptiness of space. Radiation escapes from the outermost layers of a star, carrying direct physical information. Underneath the atmosphere, the very high opacity…
Our knowledge of the Universe remains discovery-led: in the absence of adequate physics-based theory, interpretation of new results requires a scientific methodology. Commonly, scientific progress in astrophysics is motivated by the…
Compact stars consisting of massless quark matter and fermionic dark matter are studied by solving the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations for two fluids separately. Dark matter is further investigated by incorporating inter-fermionic…
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…
A number of theoretical and simulation results on star and structure formation in galaxy interactions and mergers is reviewed, and recent hydrodynamic simulations are presented. The role of gravity torques and ISM turbulence in galaxy…
The cosmological constant problem represents an evident tension between our present description of gravity and particle physics. Many solutions have been proposed, but experimental tests are always difficult or impossible to perform and…
The recent observations of galaxy and dark matter clumpy distributions have provided new elements to the understating of the problem of cosmological structure formation. The strong clumpiness characterizing galaxy structures seems to be…
An overview of selected topical problems on modelling oscillation properties in solar-like stars is presented. High-quality oscillation data from both space-borne intensity observations and ground-based spectroscopic measurements provide…
In this paper we propose a notion of stability, that we call $\epsilon -N$-stability, for systems of particles interacting via Newton's gravitational potential, and orbiting a much bigger object. For these systems the usual thermodynamical…
The star formation history of galaxies is a complex process usually considered to be stochastic in nature, for which we can only give average descriptions such as the color-density relation. In this work we follow star-forming gas particles…
Thermal evolution of neutron stars is known to depend on the properties of superdense matter in neutron star cores. We suggest a statistical analysis of isolated cooling middle-aged neutron stars and old transiently accreting…
The early 21st century witnesses a dramatic rise in the study of thermal radiation of neutron stars. Modern space telescopes have provided a wealth of valuable information which, when properly interpreted, can elucidate the physics of…
The thermodynamic equilibrium conditions for compact structures composed by mass varying particles are discussed assuming that the so-called dynamical mass behaves like an additional extensive thermodynamic degree of freedom. It then…
Although rare, massive stars, being the main sources of ionizing radiation, chemical enrichment and mechanical energy in the Galaxy, are the most important objects of the stellar population. This review presents the many different aspects…
Star formation rates on the galactic scale are described phenomenologically by two distinct relationships, as emphasized recently by Elmegreen (2002). The first of these is the Schmidt law, which is a power-law relation between the star…
We introduce a simple model to explore the star formation histories of disk galaxies. We assume that the disk origins and grows by continuous gas infall. The gas infall rate is parametrized by the Gaussian formula with one free parameter:…
Together with interstellar turbulence, gravitation is one key player in star formation. It acts both at galactic scales in the assembly of gas into dense clouds, and inside those structures for their collapse and the formation of…
Understanding the physics of how stars form is a highly-prioritized goal of modern Astrophysics, in part because star formation is linked to both galactic dynamics on large scales and to the formation of planets on small scales. It is…