@misc{9242174,
  abstract     = {{Context. Star formation (SF) remains an incompletely understood concept essential to many fields of astrophysics. Observations show that star-forming giant molecular clouds (GMCs) form around 1 per cent or less stars per free-fall time. This trend is observed over all nearby galaxies observed to date by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS ALMA Survey (PHANGS-ALMA) collaboration. This makes SF a highly inefficient process. It is not known whether this is an effect of stellar feedback processes that regulate SF, or if clouds are intrinsically inefficient at converting gas into stars. Aims. This thesis aims to analyse a suite of simulations implementing different SF models to determine which model types can reproduce observed star formation efficiencies (SFEs). We further investigate the effects of stellar feedback, specifically the extent to which it can regulate SFE. Methods. Isolated Milky Way mass galaxy simulations are compared to data from the PHANGS-ALMA collaboration. The simulations are mock observed to enable a direct comparison with the analysis of Leroy et al. (2025). Results. The results show that intrinsically inefficient models are better at reproducing observational data. Feedback has a small effect on local properties with a larger influence on global parameters, and even low complexity models, such as fixed input efficiencies, can match the low observed efficiencies with the correct input efficiency. In contrast, models with high intrinsic SFEs and strong feedback, which are often employed in cosmological simulations, are shown to fail at reproducing observed cloud-scale trends and SFEs. Conclusions. The findings give an indication of which models are reasonable at matching observed data and what parameters are important to determine SFEs. These findings indicate which models best reflect observational data and how feedback regulates properties. The results provide guidance in selecting and calibrating SF models for future galaxy-scale simulations.}},
  author       = {{Kamleitner, Elias}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Star formation efficiency of giant molecular clouds in spiral galaxies}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}