Galaxy Evolution in the ALMA Era - Star Formation in Nearby Galaxies and Beyond

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A thorough understanding of the processes leading to and regulating the conversion of gas into stars is key to understand structure formation in the universe and the evolution of galaxies through cosmic time. Despite significant progress over the past years, key questions remain open where answers critically require detailed studies of the interstellar medium and star formation in a wide range of galactic environments. Specific questions include: how do galaxies obtain new gas to fuel star formation and how is this gas distributed within galaxy disks? Given their template character for galaxies at high redshift (i.e., in the early universe), how does star formation proceed under the vastly different conditions (low dust and metal content) in the outer disks of galaxies? And how does this relate to star formation in the extreme conditions in starburst and merging galaxies? The proposed Emmy Noether research program will set up a group to address these pressing questions. Nearby galaxies offer a unique opportunity for such studies, because they are close enough for detailed investigations on spatial scales relevant to star formation (~ 100 pc) and allow to study rarely probed environments. Through a series of widely recognized studies, the applicant has laid the relevant groundwork over the past five years. He has furthermore established collaborations with leading theorists, who will develop detailed simulations to compare to the observations.