Letters of Intent received in 2013

LoI 2015-213
Star Formation across Scales in the Universe

Date: 3 August 2015 to 6 August 2015
Category: Non-GA Symposium
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
Contact: Philippe ANDRE (pandre@cea.fr)
Coordinating division: Division H Interstellar Matter and Local Universe
Other divisions: Division G Stars and Stellar Physics
Division J Galaxies and Cosmology
Co-Chairs of SOC: Philippe ANDRÉ (CEA Saclay)
Steve EALES (Cardif University)
Chair of LOC: TBD ()

 

Topics

* Formation of molecular clouds and global conditions for star formation

* Filamentary structure of the ISM and its relevance to star formation on GMC scales

* Star cluster formation and feedback

* Massive star formation and early evolution of young massive star clusters

* Origin and Universality of the IMF

* Is there a fundamental difference between low-mass and high-mass star formation ?

* The ISM in the Milky Way compared to local and high-z galaxies

* Global star formation in galaxies and its dependence on external environment and internal properties such as metallicity

* Star formation laws and thresholds

* Star formation in “main-sequence” disk versus starburst galaxies

* Co-evolution of AGNs and star formation in galaxies

* Galaxy populations and their ISM evolution over cosmic time

* Is there a fundamental difference between local and high-z star formation or is star formation “universal” ?

 

Rationale

The results of recent infrared and submillimeter surveys with, e.g., the Spitzer and Herschel space observatories suggest that star formation in dense molecular gas is governed by essentially the same “laws” in nearby Galactic clouds and distant external galaxies. This raises the possibility of a unified picture of star formation in the Universe from small scales (clouds, filaments, cores) to galaxy-wide scales.
The proposed symposium would bring together researchers working on star formation throughout the Universe from nearby clouds to local galaxies to high-redshift galaxies, both observers and theorists, who would debate the fundamental question whether the dominant mode of star formation is universal.
With the advent of powerful observational facilities such as ALMA and high-resolution, multi-scale numerical simulations, we believe the time is ripe for such a meeting bridging the gap between Galactic and extragalactic star formation.