We review current understanding of star formation, outlining an overall theoretical framework and the observations that motivate it. A conception of star formation has emerged in which turbulence plays a dual role, both creating overdensities to initiate gravitational contraction or collapse, and countering the effects of gravity in these overdense regions. The key dynamical processes involved in star formation—turbulence, magnetic fields, and self-gravity— are highly nonlinear and multidimensional. Physical arguments are used to identify and explain the features and scalings involved in star formation, and results from numerical simulations are used to quantify these effects. We divide star formation into large-scale and small-scale regimes and review each in turn. Large scales range from galaxies to giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and their substructures. Important problems include how GMCs form and evolve, what determines the star formation rate (SFR), and what determines the initial mass function (IMF). Small scales range from dense cores to the protostellar systems they beget. We discuss formation of both low- and high-mass stars, including ongoing accretion. The development of winds and outflows is increasingly well understood, as are the mechanisms governing angular momentum transport in disks. Although outstanding questions remain, the framework is now in place to build a comprehensive theory of star formation that will be tested by the next generation of telescopes.

/pdf/theory-of-star-formation-sol2jzngnw.pdf

Theory of Star Formation

With the goal of investigating the degree to which the MIR emission traces the SFR, we analyze Spitzer 8 and 24 μm data of star-forming regions in a sample of 33 nearby galaxies with available HST NICMOS images in the Paα (1.8756 μm) emission line. The galaxies are drawn from the SINGS sample and cover a range of morphologies and a factor ~10 in oxygen abundance. Published data on local low-metallicity starburst galaxies and LIRGs are also included in the analysis. Both the stellar continuum-subtracted 8 μm emission and the 24 μm emission correlate with the extinction-corrected Paα line emission, although neither relationship is linear. Simple models of stellar populations and dust extinction and emission are able to reproduce the observed nonlinear trend of the 24 μm emission versus number of ionizing photons, including the modest deficiency of 24 μm emission in the low-metallicity regions, which results from a combination of decreasing dust opacity and dust temperature at low luminosities. Conversely, the trend of the 8 μm emission as a function of the number of ionizing photons is not well reproduced by the same models. The 8 μm emission is contributed, in larger measure than the 24 μm emission, by dust heated by nonionizing stellar populations, in addition to the ionizing ones, in agreement with previous findings. Two SFR calibrations, one using the 24 μm emission and the other using a combination of the 24 μm and Hα luminosities (Kennicutt and coworkers), are presented. No calibration is presented for the 8 μm emission because of its significant dependence on both metallicity and environment. The calibrations presented here should be directly applicable to systems dominated by ongoing star formation.

/pdf/the-calibration-of-mid-infrared-star-formation-rate-41y9hddbgb.pdf

The Calibration of Mid-Infrared Star Formation Rate Indicators

We report the results from a comprehensive study of 74 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) and 34 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars within z ~ 0.3 observed with the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS). The contribution of nuclear activity to the bolometric luminosity in these systems is quantified using six independent methods that span a range in wavelength and give consistent results within ~±10%-15% on average. This agreement suggests that deeply buried active galactic nuclei (AGNs) invisible to Spitzer IRS but bright in the far-infrared are not common in this sample. The average derived AGN contribution in ULIRGs is ~35%-40%, ranging from ~15%-35% among "cool" (f_(25)/f_(60) ≤ 0.2) optically classified H II-like and LINER ULIRGs to ~50 and ~75% among warm Seyfert 2 and Seyfert 1 ULIRGs, respectively. This number exceeds ~80% in PG QSOs. ULIRGs fall in one of three distinct AGN classes: (1) objects with small extinctions and large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) equivalent widths are highly starburst-dominated; (2) systems with large extinctions and modest PAH equivalent widths have larger AGN contributions, but still tend to be starburst-dominated; and (3) ULIRGs with both small extinctions and small PAH equivalent widths host AGN that are at least as powerful as the starbursts. The AGN contributions in class 2 ULIRGs are more uncertain than in the other objects, and we cannot formally rule out the possibility that these objects represent a physically distinct type of ULIRGs. A morphological trend is seen along the sequence (1)-(2)-(3), in general agreement with the standard ULIRG–QSO evolution scenario and suggestive of a broad peak in extinction during the intermediate stages of merger evolution. However, the scatter in this sequence, including the presence of a significant number of AGN-dominated systems prior to coalescence and starburst-dominated but fully merged systems, implies that black hole accretion, in addition to depending on the merger phase, also has a strong chaotic/random component, as in local AGNs.

/pdf/spitzer-quasar-and-ulirg-evolution-study-quest-iv-comparison-tej6vi2b28.pdf

SPITZER QUASAR AND ULIRG EVOLUTION STUDY (QUEST). IV. COMPARISON OF 1 Jy ULTRALUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES WITH PALOMAR-GREEN QUASARS

We evaluate the role of radiation pressure in the dynamics of HII regions. We first determine under what conditions radiation pressure is significant in comparison to gas pressure and show that, while radiation pressure is generally unimportant for HII regions driven by a handful of massive stars, it is dominant for the larger HII regions produced by the massive star clusters found near the Galactic center and in starburst environments. We then provide a solution for the problem of how HII regions expand when radiation pressure influences their behavior. Finally, we compare radiation-dominated HII regions to other sources of stellar feedback, and argue that HII regions are probably the primary mechanism for regulating the formation of massive star clusters.

pdf/the-dynamics-of-radiation-pressure-dominated-hii-regions-45aj74z19m.pdf

The Dynamics of Radiation Pressure-Dominated HII Regions

We combine the stellar spectral synthesis code Starburst99, the nebular modeling code MAPPINGS III and a one-dimensional dynamical evolution model of H II regions around massive clusters of young stars to generate improved models of the spectral energy distribution (SED) of starburst galaxies. We introduce a compactness parameter, , which characterizes the specific intensity of the radiation field at ionization fronts in H II regions and which controls the shape of the far-infrared (IR) dust reemission, often referred to loosely as the dust temperature. We also investigate the effect of metallicity on the overall SED and in particular, on the strength of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features. We provide templates for the mean emission produced by the young compact H II regions, the older (10-100 Myr) stars and for the wavelength-dependent attenuation produced by a foreground screen of the dust used in our model. We demonstrate that these components may be combined to produce a excellent fit to the observed SEDs of star formation-dominated galaxies which are often used as templates (Arp 220 and NGC 6240). This fit extends from the Lyman limit to wavelengths of about 1 mm. The methods presented in both this paper and in the previous papers of this series allow the extraction of the physical parameters of the starburst region (star formation rates, star formation rate history, mean cluster mass, metallicity, dust attenuation, and pressure) from the analysis of the pan-spectral SED.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/528711/pdf

Modeling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies. IV. The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED

This paper presents both stellar mass and H ii region diagnostics based on dusty, radiation-pressure-dominated photoionization models for compact and ultracompact H ii regions, and compares these with observational constraints. These models successfully reproduce the observed relationship between the density and the thickness of the ionized layer. The absorption of ionizing photons in the dusty ionized plasma makes denser ionized regions thinner than simple photoionization models would predict, improving the fit with the observations. The models provideagoodfittoobserveddiagnosticplotsinvolvingratiosofinfraredemissionlines,allaccessiblewiththeIRS instrument of theSpitzer Space Telescope. These give the effective temperature to an accuracy of about 2500 K and themassoftheionizingstartoaprecisionofabout � 30%.TheSiv/Siiiratioissensitivetoforegroundextinctionas well as to stellar effective temperature or mass. From this ratio, we determine that the mean extinction to observed compact H iiregions is typically AV � 30 mag. The electron temperature depends on the chemical abundances, the pressure, and theeffective temperature ofthe excitingstar. We usethesemodelsto rederivethe slope oftheGalactic abundance gradient, with the result that d log (O/H)/dRG ¼ 0:06 � 0:01 dex kpc � 1 , bringing the Galactic abundance gradient derived from compact H ii regions into closer agreement with those based on other techniques. The shape of the far-IR SED of compact H ii regions can be used to constrain the mean pressure or density in the H ii region. The Spitzer MIPS instrument should be very helpful in this regard. Subject headings: circumstellarmatter — dust,extinction — galaxies:starburst — Hiiregions — infrared:ISM — techniques: spectroscopic

/pdf/compact-h-ii-regions-what-lies-within-g59p29mphi.pdf

Compact H II Regions: What Lies Within?

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Compact H II Regions: What Lies Within?