How stars form in the turbulent-multiphase interstellar medium? |
TYPE | Astrophysics Seminar |
Speaker: | Shmuel Bialy |
Affiliation: | Harvard CfA |
Date: | 28.10.2020 |
Time: | 16:00 - 17:00 |
Location | Zoom |
Website: | https://panoptotech.cloud.panopt... |
Abstract: | I will start with a broad review of the field of star formation and galaxy evolution, and some pressing open questions. I will then dive into the star-forming interstellar medium (ISM), asking the question, what regulates the star formation process? I will discuss the multiphase structure of the ISM, key heating-cooling processes and chemical processes in the ISM, and turbulence, all of which may play an important role in regulating star formation. I will focus on a particularly appealing theory for star formation where gas heating by far-UV radiation from young stars (and by cosmic-rays in some galaxies), may provide a natural feedback loop, and thus organically self-regulate star-formation in galactic disks, and present recent results (Bialy 2020, ApJ accepted) for the link between star-formation rate and far-UV radiation intensity. I will conclude with future prospects: Charting new ways for constraining poorly known interstellar properties: turbulence, 3D ISM structure, low energy cosmic-ray spectra, and our plan to construct an improved star-formation model for next-generation large scale cosmological simulations (i.e., IllustrisTNG successors). |