St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Register / Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Star formation in Galactic flows

Thumbnail
View/Open
Smilgys_2016_MNRAS_GalacticFlows_FinalPubVersion.pdf (1.916Mb)
Date
21/06/2016
Author
Smilgys, Romas
Bonnell, Ian A.
Funder
European Research Council
Grant ID
Keywords
Stars: formation
Stars: luminosity function, mass function
Galaxies: star formation
QB Astronomy
QC Physics
NDAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
We investigate the triggering of star formation in clouds that form in Galactic scale flows as the interstellar medium passes through spiral shocks. We use the Lagrangian nature of smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to trace how the star-forming gas is gathered into self-gravitating cores that collapse to form stars. Large-scale flows that arise due to Galactic dynamics create shocks of the order of 30 km s−1 that compress the gas and form dense clouds (n > several × 102 cm−3) in which self-gravity becomes relevant. These large-scale flows are necessary for creating the dense physical conditions for gravitational collapse and star formation. Local gravitational collapse requires densities in excess of n > 103 cm−3 which occur on size scales of ≈1 pc for low-mass star-forming regions (M < 100 M⊙), and up to sizes approaching 10 pc for higher mass regions (M > 103 M⊙). Star formation in the 250 pc region lasts throughout the 5 Myr time-scale of the simulation with a star formation rate of ≈10−1 M⊙ yr−1 kpc−2. In the absence of feedback, the efficiency of the star formation per free-fall time varies from our assumed 100 per cent at our sink accretion radius to values of <10−3 at low densities.
Citation
Smilgys , R & Bonnell , I A 2016 , ' Star formation in Galactic flows ' , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , vol. 459 , no. 2 , pp. 1985-1992 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw791
Publication
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw791
ISSN
0035-8711
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw791
Description
RS and IAB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council for the FP7 ERC advanced grant project ECOGAL. This work used the DiRAC Complexity system, operated by the University of Leicester IT Services, which forms part of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). This equipment is funded by BIS National E-Infrastructure capital grant ST/K000373/1 and STFC DiRAC Operations grant ST/K0003259/1. DiRAC is part of the National E-Infrastructure.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8938

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter