@article{8fe4aaf048bd432e9064b8478f3fba9f,
title = "Galactic-scale star formation by gravitational instability",
abstract = "We present numerical experiments that demonstrate that the nonlinear development of the Toomre instability in disks of isothermal gas, stars, and dark matter reproduces the observed Schmidt Law for star formation. The rate of gas collapse depends exponentially on the (minimum) value of the Toomre parameter in the disk. We demonstrate that spurious fragmentation occurs in the absence of sufficient resolution in our SPH model. Our models also reproduce observed star formation thresholds in disk galaxies. We finally briefly discuss the application of our models to the study of globular cluster formation in merging galaxies.",
author = "{Mac Low}, {Mordecai Mark} and Yuexing Li and Klessen, {Ralf S.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank V. Springel for making both GADGET and his galaxy initial condition generator available, as well as for useful discussions, and A.-K. Jappsen for participating in the implementation of sink particles in GADGET. We are grateful to F. Adams, G. Bryan, J. Dalcanton, B. Elmegreen, D. Helfand, R. Kennicutt, J. Lee, C. Martin, R. McCray, T. Quinn, E. Quataert, M. Shara, C. Struck, and J. van Gorkom for very useful discussions. This work was supported by the NSF under grants AST99-85392 and AST03-07854, by NASA under grant NAG5-13028, and by the Emmy Noether Program of the DFG under grant KL1358/1. Computations were performed at the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center supported by the NSF, on the Parallel Computing Facility of the AMNH, and on an Ultrasparc III cluster generously donated by Sun Microsystems.",
year = "2006",
month = aug,
doi = "10.1017/S174392130700169X",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "2",
pages = "336--343",
journal = "Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union",
issn = "1743-9213",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
number = "S237",
}