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With the advent of modern observational efforts providing extensive giant molecular cloud catalogues, understanding the evolution of such clouds in a galactic context is of prime importance. While numerous previous numerical and theoretical works have focused on the cloud properties in isolated discs, few have looked into the cloud population in an interacting disc system. We present results of the first study investigating the evolution of the cloud population in galaxy experiencing an M51-like tidal fly-by using numerical simulations including star formation, interstellar medium cooling, and stellar feedback. We see the cloud population shift to large unbound clouds in the wake of the companion passage, with the largest clouds appearing as fleeting short-lived agglomerations of smaller clouds within the tidal spiral arms, brought together by large-scale streaming motions. These are then sheared apart as they leave the protection of the spiral arms. Clouds appear to lead diverse lives, even within similar environments, with some being born from gas shocked by filaments streaming into the spiral arms, and others from effectively isolated smaller colliding pairs. Overall, this cloud population produces a shallower mass function than the disc in isolation, especially in the arms compared to the inter-arm regions. Direct comparisons to M51 observations show similarities between cloud populations, though models tailored to the mass and orbital models of M51 appear necessary to precisely reproduce the cloud population.

We explore the effect of different galactic disc environments on the properties of star-forming clouds through variations in the background potential in a set of isolated galaxy simulations. Rising, falling, and flat rotation curves expected in halo-dominated, disc-dominated, and Milky Way-like galaxies were considered, with and without an additional two-arm spiral potential. The evolution of each disc displayed notable variations that are attributed to different regimes of stability, determined by shear and gravitational collapse. The properties of a typical cloud were largely unaffected by the changes in rotation curve, but the production of small and large cloud associations was strongly dependent on this environment. This suggests that while differing rotation curves can influence where clouds are initially formed, the average bulk properties are effectively independent of the global environment. The addition of a spiral perturbation made the greatest difference to cloud properties, successfully sweeping the gas into larger, seemingly unbound, extended structures and creating large arm-interarm contrasts.

We explore the effect of different galactic disc environments on the properties of star-forming clouds through variations in the background potential in a set of isolated galaxy simulations. Rising, falling, and flat rotation curves expected in halo-dominated, disc-dominated, and Milky Way-like galaxies were considered, with and without an additional two-arm spiral potential. The evolution of each disc displayed notable variations that are attributed to different regimes of stability, determined by shear and gravitational collapse. The properties of a typical cloud were largely unaffected by the changes in rotation curve, but the production of small and large cloud associations was strongly dependent on this environment. This suggests that while differing rotation curves can influence where clouds are initially formed, the average bulk properties are effectively independent of the global environment. The addition of a spiral perturbation made the greatest difference to cloud properties, successfully sweeping the gas into larger, seemingly unbound, extended structures and creating large arm-interarm contrasts.

Tidal encounters are believed to be one of the key drivers of galactic spiral structure in the Universe. Such spirals are expected to produce different morphological and kinematic features compared to density wave and dynamic spiral arms. In this work, we present high-resolution simulations of a tidal encounter of a small mass companion with a disc galaxy. Included are the effects of gas cooling and heating, star formation and stellar feedback. The structure of the perturbed disc differs greatly from the isolated galaxy, showing clear spiral features that act as sites of new star formation, and displaying interarm spurs. The two arms of the galaxy, the bridge and tail, appear to behave differently; with different star formation histories and structure. Specific attention is focused on offsets between gas and stellar spiral features which can be directly compared to observations.We find that some offsets do exist between different media, with gaseous arms appearing mostly on the convex side of the stellar arms, though the exact locations appear highly time dependent. These results further highlight the differences between tidal spirals and other theories of arm structure.

We investigated the effect of photoionizing feedback inside turbulent star-forming clouds, comparing the resultant star formation in both idealized profiles and more realistic cloud structures drawn from a global galaxy simulation. We performed a series of numerical simulations that compared the effect of star formation alone, photoionization and photoionization plus supernovae feedback. In the idealized cloud, photoionization suppresses gas fragmentation at early times, resulting in the formation of more massive stars and an increase in the star formation efficiency. At later times, the dispersal of the dense gas causes the radiative feedback effect to switch from positive to negative as the star formation efficiency drops. In the cloud extracted from the global simulation, the initial cloud is heavily fragmented prior to the stellar-feedback beginning and is largely structurally unaffected by the late injection of radiation energy. The result is a suppression of the star formation. We conclude that the efficiency of feedback is heavily dependent on the gas structure, with negative feedback dominating when the density is high.

We investigated the effect of photoionizing feedback inside turbulent star-forming clouds, comparing the resultant star formation in both idealized profiles and more realistic cloud structures drawn from a global galaxy simulation. We performed a series of numerical simulations that compared the effect of star formation alone, photoionization and photoionization plus supernovae feedback. In the idealized cloud, photoionization suppresses gas fragmentation at early times, resulting in the formation of more massive stars and an increase in the star formation efficiency. At later times, the dispersal of the dense gas causes the radiative feedback effect to switch from positive to negative as the star formation efficiency drops. In the cloud extracted from the global simulation, the initial cloud is heavily fragmented prior to the stellar-feedback beginning and is largely structurally unaffected by the late injection of radiation energy. The result is a suppression of the star formation. We conclude that the efficiency of feedback is heavily dependent on the gas structure, with negative feedback dominating when the density is high.

Tidal interactions between disc galaxies and low-mass companions are an established method for generating galactic spiral features. In this work, we present a study of the structure and dynamics of spiral arms driven in interactions between disc galaxies and perturbing companions in 3D N-body/smoothed hydrodynamical numerical simulations. Our specific aims are to characterize any differences between structures formed in the gas and stars from a purely hydrodynamical and gravitational perspective, and to find a limiting case for spiral structure generation. Through analysis of a number of different interacting cases, we find that there is very little difference between arm morphology, pitch angles and pattern speeds between the two media. The main differences are a minor offset between gas and stellar arms, clear spurring features in gaseous arms, and different radial migration of material in the stronger interacting cases. We investigate the minimum mass of a companion required to drive spiral structure in a galactic disc, finding the limiting spiral generation cases with companion masses of the order of 1 x 10(9) M-circle dot, equivalent to only 4 per cent of the stellar disc mass, or 0.5 per cent of the total galactic mass of a Milky Way analogue.

Cloud collision has been proposed as a way to link the small-scale star formation process with the observed global relation between the surface star formation rate and gas surface density.We suggest that this model can be improved further by allowing the productivity of such collisions to depend on the relative velocity of the two clouds. Our adjustment implements a simple step function that results in the most successful collisions being at the observed velocities for triggered star formation. By applying this to a high-resolution simulation of a barred galaxy, we successfully reproduce the observational result that the star formation efficiency (SFE) in the bar is lower than that in the spiral arms. This is not possible when we use an efficiency dependent on the internal turbulence properties of the clouds. Our results suggest that highvelocity collisions driven by the gravitational pull of the clouds are responsible for the low bar SFE

We investigate the impact of galactic environment on the properties of simulated giant molecular clouds (GMCs) formed in an M83-type barred spiral galaxy. Our simulation uses a rotating stellar potential to create the grand design features and resolves down to 1.5 pc. From the comparison of clouds found in the bar, spiral and disc regions, we find that the typical GMC is environment independent, with a mass of 5 x 10(5) M-circle dot and radius 11 pc. However, the fraction of clouds in the property distribution tails varies between regions, with larger, more massive clouds with a higher velocity dispersion being found in greatest proportions in the bar, spiral and then disc. The bar clouds also show a bimodality that is not reflected in the spiral and disc clouds except in the surface density, where all three regions show two distinct peaks. We identify these features as being due to the relative proportion of three cloud types, classified via the mass-radius scaling relation, which we label A, B and C. Type A clouds have the typical values listed above and form the largest fraction in each region. Type B clouds are massive giant molecular associations (GMAs) while type C clouds are unbound, transient clouds that form in dense filaments and tidal tails. The fraction of each clouds type depends on the cloud-cloud interactions, which cause mergers to build up the GMA type Bs and tidal features in which the type C clouds are formed. The number of cloud interactions is greatest in the bar, followed by the spiral, causing a higher fraction of both cloud types compared to the disc. While the cloud types also exist in lower resolution simulations, their identification becomes more challenging as they are not well-separated populations on the mass-radius relation or distribution plots. Finally, we compare the results for three star formation models to estimate the star formation rate and efficiency in each galactic region.

Cloud collision has been proposed as a way to link the small-scale star formation process with the observed global relation between the surface star formation rate and gas surface density. We suggest that this model can be improved further by allowing the productivity of such collisions to depend on the relative velocity of the two clouds. Our adjustment implements a simple step function that results in the most successful collisions being at the observed velocities for triggered star formation. By applying this to a high-resolution simulation of a barred galaxy, we successfully reproduce the observational result that the star formation efficiency (SFE) in the bar is lower than that in the spiral arms. This is not possible when we use an efficiency dependent on the internal turbulence properties of the clouds. Our results suggest that high-velocity collisions driven by the gravitational pull of the clouds are responsible for the low bar SFE.

We studied the gravitational collapse of a warm (similar to 8000 K) primordial-gas cloud as a candidate progenitor for a supermassive star (SMS; a parts per thousand(3) 10(5) M-aS (TM)) using a three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulation including all the relevant cooling processes of both H-2 and H, which can potentially induce cloud fragmentation. This is the first simulation of this kind to resolve protostar formation. We find that from a weakly turbulent initial condition, the cloud undergoes runaway collapse without a major episode of fragmentation. Although the H-2 fraction jumps by a large factor via the three-body reaction at similar to 10(-13) g cm(-3), its cooling remains inefficient due to the optical thickness, and the temperature remains a parts per thousand(3) 3000 K. When the central core of the cloud becomes opaque to continuum radiation at similar to 10(-8) g cm(-3), a hydrostatic protostar with a parts per thousand integral 0.2 M-aS (TM) is formed. The protostar grows to the mass a parts per thousand integral 1 M-aS (TM) and the radius a parts per thousand integral 2 au within similar to 1 yr via rapid accretion of dense filamentary flows. With high accretion rate, similar to 2 M-aS (TM) yr(-1), the protostar is expected to turn into an SMS within its lifetime, eventually collapsing to a seed for the supermassive black hole observed in the early Universe at z similar to 7.

Cloud collision has been proposed as a way to link the small-scale star formation process with the observed global relation between the surface star formation rate and gas surface density. We suggest that this model can be improved further by allowing the productivity of such collisions to depend on the relative velocity of the two clouds. Our adjustment implements a simple step function that results in the most successful collisions being at the observed velocities for triggered star formation. By applying this to a high-resolution simulation of a barred galaxy, we successfully reproduce the observational result that the star formation efficiency (SFE) in the bar is lower than that in the spiral arms. This is not possible when we use an efficiency dependent on the internal turbulence properties of the clouds. Our results suggest that high-velocity collisions driven by the gravitational pull of the clouds are responsible for the low bar SFE.

We studied the gravitational collapse of a warm (similar to 8000 K) primordial-gas cloud as a candidate progenitor for a supermassive star (SMS; a parts per thousand(3) 10(5) M-aS (TM)) using a three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulation including all the relevant cooling processes of both H-2 and H, which can potentially induce cloud fragmentation. This is the first simulation of this kind to resolve protostar formation. We find that from a weakly turbulent initial condition, the cloud undergoes runaway collapse without a major episode of fragmentation. Although the H-2 fraction jumps by a large factor via the three-body reaction at similar to 10(-13) g cm(-3), its cooling remains inefficient due to the optical thickness, and the temperature remains a parts per thousand(3) 3000 K. When the central core of the cloud becomes opaque to continuum radiation at similar to 10(-8) g cm(-3), a hydrostatic protostar with a parts per thousand integral 0.2 M-aS (TM) is formed. The protostar grows to the mass a parts per thousand integral 1 M-aS (TM) and the radius a parts per thousand integral 2 au within similar to 1 yr via rapid accretion of dense filamentary flows. With high accretion rate, similar to 2 M-aS (TM) yr(-1), the protostar is expected to turn into an SMS within its lifetime, eventually collapsing to a seed for the supermassive black hole observed in the early Universe at z similar to 7.

We investigate the impact of galactic environment on the properties of simulated giant molecular clouds (GMCs) formed in an M83-type barred spiral galaxy. Our simulation uses a rotating stellar potential to create the grand design features and resolves down to 1.5 pc. From the comparison of clouds found in the bar, spiral and disc regions, we find that the typical GMC is environment independent, with a mass of 5 x 10(5) M-circle dot and radius 11 pc. However, the fraction of clouds in the property distribution tails varies between regions, with larger, more massive clouds with a higher velocity dispersion being found in greatest proportions in the bar, spiral and then disc. The bar clouds also show a bimodality that is not reflected in the spiral and disc clouds except in the surface density, where all three regions show two distinct peaks. We identify these features as being due to the relative proportion of three cloud types, classified via the mass-radius scaling relation, which we label A, B and C. Type A clouds have the typical values listed above and form the largest fraction in each region. Type B clouds are massive giant molecular associations (GMAs) while type C clouds are unbound, transient clouds that form in dense filaments and tidal tails. The fraction of each clouds type depends on the cloud-cloud interactions, which cause mergers to build up the GMA type Bs and tidal features in which the type C clouds are formed. The number of cloud interactions is greatest in the bar, followed by the spiral, causing a higher fraction of both cloud types compared to the disc. While the cloud types also exist in lower resolution simulations, their identification becomes more challenging as they are not well-separated populations on the mass-radius relation or distribution plots. Finally, we compare the results for three star formation models to estimate the star formation rate and efficiency in each galactic region.

We have carried out a comparison study of hydrodynamical codes by investigating their performance in modelling interacting multiphase fluids. The two commonly used techniques of grid and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) show striking differences in their ability to model processes that are fundamentally important across many areas of astrophysics. Whilst Eulerian grid based methods are able to resolve and treat important dynamical instabilities, such as Kelvin-Helmholtz or Rayleigh-Taylor, these processes are poorly or not at all resolved by existing SPH techniques. We show that the reason for this is that SPH, at least in its standard implementation, introduces spurious pressure forces on particles in regions where there are steep density gradients. This results in a boundary gap of the size of an SPH smoothing kernel radius over which interactions are severely damped