| Summary: | Star formation is a key process that governs the baryon cycle within galaxies, however, the question of how it controls their growth
remains elusive due to modeling uncertainties. To understand the impact of star formation models on galaxy evolution, we performed
cosmological zoom-in radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of a dwarf dark matter halo, with a virial mass of Mvir ∼ 109 M⊙ at z = 6.
We compared two different star formation models: a multi-freefall model combined with a local gravo-thermo-turbulent condition
and a more self-consistent model based on a sink particle algorithm, where gas accretion and star formation are directly controlled by
the gas kinematics. As the first study in this series, we used cosmological zoom-in simulations with different spatial resolutions and
found that star formation is more bursty in the runs with the sink algorithm, generating stronger outflows than in the runs with the
gravo-thermo-turbulent model. The main reason for the increased burstiness is that the gas accretion rates on the sinks are high enough
to form stars on very short timescales, leading to more clustered star formation. As a result, the star-forming clumps are disrupted
more quickly in the sink run due to more coherent radiation and supernova feedback. The difference in burstiness between the two star
formation models becomes even more pronounced when the supernova explosion energy is artificially increased. Our results suggest
that improving the modeling of star formation on small, sub-molecular cloud scales can significantly impact the global properties of
simulated galaxies
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