Résumé / Abstract Seminaire_IAP
« Molecular gas and star formation across the Hubble time »

Françoise Combes
Obs. Paris (Paris, France)

The cosmic star formation rate density first increases with time towards a pronounced peak 10 Gyrs ago (or z=1-2) and then slows down, dropping by more than a factor 10 since z=1. This behaviour is interpreted through a combination of physical processes, like hierarchical merging of galaxies, gas accretion, formation of molecular clouds and stars, metal enriched gas outfows that are driven by stellar winds, supernovae and AGN activity. I will review some IRAM recent results about the molecular content of galaxies and its dynamics, obtained from CO lines. The star formation efficiency increases with redshift, as shown by the Kennicutt-Schmidt law, and the derived depletion time. Along the main sequence of massive star forming galaxies, the gas fraction was higher in the past, and galaxy disks were more unstable and more turbulent. Preliminary results will be shown with ALMA, which will in the future allow the study of normal galaxies at high z with high spatial resolution and sensitivity.
vendredi 3 octobre 2014 - 11:00
Amphithéâtre Henri Mineur, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Page web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage