I am a theoretical astrophysicist with close ties to observations, specializing on the dynamics of the interstellar medium and star formation, and my general interests include the evolution of galaxy disks, galaxy centers, and the evolution of protostellar and protoplanetary disks. Check out my CV and publications, Research ID Profile.
In Weather Forecast of the Milky Way: Shear and Stellar feedback determine the lives of Galactic-scale filaments we trace the evolution of the molecular ISM using a sample of Young Stellar Objects (YSO) association --molecular cloud complex (YSO-MC complex). See Here for more details.
In A massive Keplerian protostellar disk with flyby-induced spirals in the Central Molecular Zone, Lu, Li et al. Nature Astronomy we report the discovery of a first case of of flyby-induced formaiton of spiral structures in a massive protoplanetary disk.
In Discovery of a coherent, wave-like velocity pattern for the Radcliffe Wave (Li & Chen 2022) We use the proper motions of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) anchored inside the clouds to study the kinematic structure of the Radcliffe Wave in terms of vz, and identify a damped, wave-like pattern from the vz space, which we call "velocity undulation".
In Zhou, Li & Chen (2021), we present a first catalog of YSO associations in the solar neighborhood. The sample allows us to study the motion of gas, constrain the origin of molecular cloud turbulence, understand the nature of Giant Filamentary Structures, and identify cloud collision candidates.
Li Cao & Qiu (2021) use the Delaunay Triangulation diagram to study cloud collapse, and find evidences of where the collapse of cloud is controlled by a scale-dependent turbulent pressure.
Li & Shi (2021) propose that the gravitational interactions between stars and gas leads to the creation of colliminated concentration of molecular gas, called molecular contrails.