paper

Shock-induced star formation in a model of the Mice

arXiv:astro-ph/0402248 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07725.x

Abstract

Star formation plays an important role in the fate of interacting galaxies. To date, most galactic simulations including star formation have used a density-dependent star formation rule designed to approximate a Schmidt law. Here, I present a new star formation rule which is governed by the local rate of energy dissipation in shocks. The new and old rules are compared using self-consistent simulations of NGC 4676; shock-induced star formation provides a better match to the observations of this system.

Submitted to MNRAS. 12 pages, 5 B&W figures, 2 color figures. See http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~barnes/sisfmm.html for a version with high-resolution figures, and http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~barnes/research/interaction_models/mice/index.html for animations of the simulations

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