Oscar Agertz
Associate Professor / Senior university lecturer / Wallenberg Academy Fellow
Runaway stars masquerading as star formation in galactic outskirts
Author
Summary, in English
In the outskirts of nearby spiral galaxies, star formation is observed in extremely low gas surface densities. Star formation in these regions, where the interstellar medium is dominated by diffuse atomic hydrogen, is difficult to explain with classic star formation theories. In this letter, we introduce runaway stars as an explanation for this observation. Runaway stars, produced by collisional dynamics in young stellar clusters, can travel kiloparsecs during their main-sequence lifetime. Using galactic-scale hydrodynamic simulations including a treatment of individual stars, we demonstrate that this mechanism enables the ejection of young massive stars into environments where the gas is not dense enough to trigger star formation. This results in the appearance of star formation in regions where it ought to be impossible. We conclude that runaway stars are a contributing, if not dominant, factor to the observations of star formation in the outskirts of spiral galaxies.
Department/s
- Lund Observatory - Has been reorganised
- eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
Publishing year
2021
Language
English
Pages
29-34
Publication/Series
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Volume
502
Issue
1
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Topic
- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Keywords
- galaxies: star formation
- ISM: evolution
- stars: kinematics and dynamics
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1745-3925