  Star formation plays an important role in the fate of interacting galaxies.
To date, most galactic simulations including star formation have used a
density-dependent star formation rule designed to approximate a Schmidt law.
Here, I present a new star formation rule which is governed by the local rate
of energy dissipation in shocks. The new and old rules are compared using
self-consistent simulations of NGC 4676; shock-induced star formation provides
a better match to the observations of this system.
