Atomic and Molecular Phases of the Interstellar Medium

Abstract

This review covers four current questions in the behavior of the atomic and molecular interstellar medium. These include whether the atomic gas originates primarily in cold streams or hot flows onto galaxies; what the filling factor of cold gas actually is in galactic regions observationally determined to be completely molecular; whether molecular hydrogen determines or merely traces star formation; and whether gravity or turbulence drives the dynamical motions observed in interstellar clouds, with implications on their star formation properties.

8 pages, submitted for publication in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 315, From interstellar clouds to star-forming galaxies: universal processes? F. Van der Tak, P. Jablonka, & P. Andre, eds

References in corpus (9)

• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• The Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
• The SILCC (SImulating the LifeCycle of molecular Clouds) project: I. Chemical evolution of the supernova-driven ISM
• Moving mesh cosmology: tracing cosmological gas accretion
• Turbulent Structure of a Stratified Supernova-Driven Interstellar Medium
• Star Formation in Disk Galaxies. I. Formation and Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds via Gravitational Instability and Cloud Collisions
• Dependence of Interstellar Turbulent Pressure on Supernova Rate
• Modelling the supernova-driven ISM in different environments
• Distribution of streaming rates into high-redshift galaxies