Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/09/2023
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

BSB 137 (location has been changed for this date only)

Guest: Dr. Ralph Pudritz, Professor
Profile: https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/pudritz
McMaster University

Title: From the Galaxy to Stars: Uncovering the Mechanism(s) for Cloud, Star Cluster, and Star Formation using Multiscale Galaxy Simulations.

Abstract:

The advent of ALMA, JWST, and a host of recent high resolution atomic hydrogen, molecular gas, and dust surveys are transforming our understanding of star formation over a very wide range of physical scales in galaxies. Recent JWST observations of spiral galaxies such as NGC 628 reveal hierarchical networks of filamentary gas structures over many decades of physical scale. Of equal importance are the thousands of bubble and superbubbles created in the galactic disk by concentrated supernova explosions from massive young star clusters extending up to thousands of parsecs (kpc) scales. Star formation is a highly dynamic process involving multi-scale physical processes: shock generated turbulence, gravitational instabilities in filaments, and supernova feedback from forming star clusters. Massive, kpc long filaments of atomic and molecular gas and dust are the largest scale in a hierarchy that extends down to star forming, giant molecular clouds (100pc) within them, star clusters within the filamentary GMCs (several pc), and even down to regions of individual star formation within clusters (.01 pc). I will first review recent progress on this topic arising from these new observations and simulations. I will then highlight our own novel galactic multi-scale, zoom-in simulations that allow us to track the formation of structure from galactic to sub pc scales in a magnetized, Milky Way – like galaxies undergoing supernova driven feedback processes. Our results suggest a universal mechanism that creates structure and drives star formation.