Colloquium Abstract - Koch - 2024Nov01

November 1, 2024

11:00am Mountain

Eric Koch (CfA)

 

Revealing the multi-phase neutral interstellar medium's role in the star formation lifecycle: a sharpened view of nearby galaxies from LGLBS and PHANGS-JWST

 

Abstract

The neutral interstellar medium (ISM) fuels the star formation lifecycle, yet we still lack vital constraints on the formation and destruction of molecular clouds because of challenges in observing the cold neutral ISM phases with high resolution and sensitivity. With dedicated surveys, the combination of VLA, ALMA, and JWST can now make significant advances in the coming years. In this talk, I will present multiple observational approaches that are making progress in this area: detailed 21-cm HI VLA mapping across the Local Group from the Local Group L-band Survey (lglbs.org), resolved molecular cloud studies with ALMA and JWST in M33 and PAH imaging from PHANGS-JWST as a highly sensitive resolved view of the total neutral gas tracer (phangs.org). These surveys bridge Galactic with extragalactic star formation studies and provide new constraints to guide the next generation of numerical simulations.


Local Host: Juergen Ott

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