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On the fragmentation of cosmic gas clouds. I - The formation of galaxies and the first generation of stars
Abstract
The formation of galaxies is studied in the context of the fragmentation of massive diffuse ionized gas clouds. A semiquantitative discussion of the role of cooling indicates that there is a characteristic mass of a galaxy (of the order of 500 billion solar masses) which can fragment out of an ionized medium of density not exceeding 10 to the -25th power g/cu cm, whereas more massive galaxies attain a characteristic radius of the order of 60 kpc. The relationship between binding energy and mass is investigated for spheroidal galaxies. The role of H2 and Ly-alpha cooling in the fragmentation of primordial gas clouds is evaluated, and relatively qualitative arguments indicate that the first stars have masses of at least 0.3 solar mass with a characteristic mass of approximately 20 solar masses. When the average heavy-element abundance by mass exceeds about 0.00001, heavy-element cooling prevails over Ly-alpha cooling, and subsequent fragmentation forms second-generation stars of low characteristic mass.
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“Coincidentally, our Galaxy is at the critical mass where one expects both the SNe and black hole feedback to be active.”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Silk 1977
In the citing paper
“Galactic outflows are ubiquitous in galaxies containing active star formation or supermassive black hole activity.”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Silk 1977
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Croton, D. J., Springel, V., White, S. D. M., Lucia, G. D., Frenk, C. S., Gao, L., Jenkins, A., Kauffmann, G., Navarro, J. F., & Yoshida, N. (2005) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09675.x · Cited by 3,686
“Finally, we note that the existence and importance of these two modes were the major insights of the original work of Silk (1977), Binney (1977) and Rees & Ostriker (1977) and have been built into all modern theories for galaxy formation.”
BackgroundBreaking the hierarchy of galaxy formation
Bower, R. G., Benson, A., Malbon, R. K., Helly, J. C., Frenk, C. S., Baugh, C. M., Cole, S., & Lacey, C. G. (2006) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10519.x · Cited by 2,463
“Simple scaling arguments suggested that the observed break in the luminosity function at bright magnitudes would naturally arise from the long cooling time of gas in large haloes (Binney 1977; Rees & Ostriker 1977; Silk 1977; White & Rees 1978).”
BackgroundHow do galaxies get their gas?
Kere, D., Katz, N. S., Weinberg, D. H., & Davé, R. (2005) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09451.x · Cited by 2,267
Peng, Y., Lilly, S. J., Kovač, K., Bolzonella, M., Pozzetti, L., Renzini, A., Zamorani, G., Ilbert, O., Knobel, C., Iovino, A., et al. (2010) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/721/1/193 · Cited by 1,991
Galaxy bimodality due to cold flows and shock heating
Dekel, A., & Birnboim, Y. (2006) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10145.x · Cited by 1,840
“The standard paradigm of disc formation (Rees & Ostriker 1977; Silk 1977; White & Rees 1978; Blumenthal, Faber, Primack & Rees 1984; White & Frenk 1991; Mo, Mao & White 1998), which lies at the basis of all current models of galaxy formation, assumes that while a DM halo relaxes to a virial…”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Silk, J.
- Corresponding author
- Silk, J.
- ORCID
- Silk, J.
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 1977-02
- Volume
- 211
- Pages
- 638
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2010419548
- Semantic Scholar
- 2bcefe5b5fe76c98d49f4a6f7ed17cfd3ad2c452
- Cited by
- 510
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 8.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Astrophysical Journal (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Keywords
- galaxy formation, ionized gas clouds, cooling, molecular hydrogen cooling, binding energy, spheroidal galaxies, primordial gas clouds, second-generation stars, stellar mass distribution
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