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

透彻理解导致和调节气体转化为恒星的过程是理解宇宙结构形成和星系在宇宙时间中的演化的关键。尽管过去几年取得了重大进展，但关键问题仍然悬而未决，关键问题的答案需要对星际介质和大范围星系环境中的恒星形成进行详细研究。具体的问题包括：星系如何获得新的气体来为恒星的形成提供燃料，这些气体是如何在星系盘中分布的？考虑到高红移星系（即早期宇宙）的模板特征，在星系外盘截然不同的条件下（低尘埃和金属含量），恒星形成是如何进行的？在星暴和合并星系的极端条件下，这与恒星形成有什么关系？拟议中的埃米·诺特研究计划将成立一个小组来解决这些紧迫的问题。附近的星系为这类研究提供了一个独特的机会，因为它们足够近，可以在与恒星形成相关的空间尺度上进行详细的研究（~ 100pc），并允许研究很少被探测的环境。申请人在过去五年中通过一系列广泛认可的研究，奠定了相关的基础。此外，他还与主要理论家建立了合作关系，他们将开发详细的模拟，与观测结果进行比较。

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.