Jeroen Gerritsen

Star Formation and the Interstellar Medium in Galaxy Simulations

> The purpose of this talk is to clarify the interaction between star
> formation and the interstellar medium (ISM) using numerical
> simulations. In summary, the thermal balance in the ISM is regulated
> by a realistic treatment of the stellar heating and radiative cooling,
> where gas is allowed to cool to 10 K. Star formation is treated in a
> semi-empirical fashion using a Jeans-mass detector, and the evolution
> of the young star clusters is followed in detail, using stellar
> population synthesis models to trace both the resulting radiation
> field and supernova energy. This model is tested on an isolated disk
> galaxy and as an application a merger sequence between two disk
> galaxies is shown.