Pith. sign in

REVIEW 5 cited by

Star formation thresholds and galaxy edges: why and where

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv astro-ph/0205125 v3 pith:4YFHURF3 submitted 2002-05-08 astro-ph

Star formation thresholds and galaxy edges: why and where

classification astro-ph
keywords formationstardiskgalaxiesthresholdthresholdscolddensity
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
Share X Bluesky LinkedIn Reddit HN
read the original abstract

We study global star formation thresholds in the outer parts of galaxies by investigating the stability of disk galaxies embedded in dark halos. The disks are self-gravitating, contain metals and dust, and are exposed to UV radiation. We find that the critical surface density for the existence of a cold interstellar phase depends only weakly on the parameters of the model and coincides with the empirically derived surface density threshold for star formation. Furthermore, it is shown that the drop in the thermal velocity dispersion associated with the transition from the warm to the cold gas phase triggers gravitational instability on a wide range of scales. The presence of strong turbulence does not undermine this conclusion if the disk is self-gravitating. Models based on the hypothesis that the onset of thermal instability determines the star formation threshold in the outer parts of galaxies can reproduce many observations, including the threshold radii, column densities, and the sizes of stellar disks as a function of disk scale length and mass. Finally, prescriptions are given for implementing star formation thresholds in (semi-)analytic models and three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 5 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Introducing AuriGLOBES: The effects of compressive tides, compact object-induced mass loss, and size evolution on modelling globular clusters

    astro-ph.GA 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    AuriGLOBES is a new subgrid model implemented in Auriga simulations that incorporates compressive tides and compact-object mass loss to transform an initial Schechter mass function into observed globular cluster popul...

  2. Introducing AuriGLOBES: The effects of compressive tides, compact object-induced mass loss, and size evolution on modelling globular clusters

    astro-ph.GA 2026-06 conditional novelty 6.0

    A cosmological simulation with tidally compressive cluster formation and compact-object heating yields globular cluster populations consistent with observations.

  3. Bulgeless Evolution And the Rise of Discs (BEARD) I. Physical drivers of the mass-size relation for Milky Way-like galaxies

    astro-ph.GA 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Bulgeless galaxies trace the upper envelope of the mass-R1 relation with scatter driven by central stellar density and the spatial configuration of mergers rather than their number.

  4. GREX-PLUS Science Book v2

    astro-ph.IM 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    A mission-proposal science book forecasting observational yields for a proposed JAXA 2–18 µm infrared space telescope; no new measurement or derivation is presented.

  5. GREX-PLUS Science Book v2

    astro-ph.IM 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 2.0

    GREX-PLUS is a proposed JAXA L-class mission with a 1m cooled telescope, wide-field 2-8um camera, and R=30000 spectrometer in 10-18um to enable studies of z>15 galaxies, protoplanetary snowlines, and related astrophysics.