›Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies

Dwarf irregular galaxies are the most common type of galaxy locally. They are also the closest analogs in the nearby universe to the low mass dark matter haloes that formed after the Big Bang, and in the LambdaCDM model, it is in these entities that the first stars formed. Yet, we do not understand what drives star formation on galactic scales even in nearby dwarfs, the simplest, most pristine local environments.

Workshop topics include mechanisms for triggering cloud formation in dwarfs, phases of the ISM, outer disks, thickness and structure of dwarf disks, disk kinematics, and star clusters. This workshop aims to address the following fundamental questions:

• What regulates star formation in small, gas-rich galaxies?
• What is the relative importance of sequential triggering for star formation in dwarf galaxies?
• What is the relative importance of triggering of star formation by random turbulence compression in dwarf galaxies?
• What happens to the star formation process in the outer parts of disks?
• What role does dust, or the lack of it, play in the star formation process?
• What goes wrong in Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies?