Abstract: Different from the Milky Way, disks of gas-rich galaxies are clumpy. It remains a mystery why they are clumpy and how star formation occurs in these clumps. Molecular clouds constitute a significant fraction of the total mass of galactic disks, and they play important roles in disk dynamics. I will present some recent observational results, and discuss how dynamics of molecular clouds on pc scale influences the dynamics of galactic disk at kpc scale and lead to the formation of giant clumps.

Bio: Dr. Guang-Xing Li finished his Master with Prof. Ye-Fei Yuan in USTC, Hefei, where he worked on black hole accretion disks(2007-2010). Then he moved to Bonn, Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy to do observations of star-forming regions(2010-2014). After that he got position in University of Munich where he combines simulations and observations to study star formation in the Milky Way and other galaxies.