Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar
The Chemistry of Galaxy Formation
I will present a novel model of star formation based on non-equilibrium
treatment of molecular hydrogen in self-consistent cosmological simulations
of galaxy formation, including effects of self-shielding and shielding by
dust. The model predicts strong dependence of the global Kennicutt-Schmidt
star formation relation on the metallicity of the interstellar medium of
galaxies (and a weaker dependence on the interstellar UV field) and can
explain recent results indicating inefficient star formation in
high-redshift Damped Lyman alpha galaxies at z~3. General considerations and
some preliminary simulation results indicate that low efficiency of star
formation at high redshifts can have significant implications for galaxy
formation and may help resolve many of the main problems and puzzles of
galaxy formation within hierarchical CDM scenario.
Date & Time
May 18, 2010 | 11:00am
Location
Bloomberg Hall Astrophysics LibrarySpeakers
Affiliation
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The Enrico Fermi Institute, The University of Chicago