scholarly journals The effect of diffuse background on the spatially-resolved Schmidt relation in nearby spiral galaxies

2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. A24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimisha Kumari ◽  
Mike J. Irwin ◽  
Bethan L. James

Context. The global Schmidt law of star formation provides a power-law relation between the surface densities of star-formation rate (SFR) and gas, and successfully explains plausible scenarios of galaxy formation and evolution. However, star formation being a multi-scale process, requires spatially-resolved analysis for a better understanding of the physics of star formation. Aims. It has been shown that the removal of a diffuse background from SFR tracers, such as Hα, far-ultraviolet (FUV), infrared, leads to an increase in the slope of the sub-galactic Schmidt relation. We reinvestigate the local Schmidt relations in nine nearby spiral galaxies taking into account the effect of inclusion and removal of diffuse background in SFR tracers as well as in the atomic gas. Methods. We used multiwavelength data obtained as part of the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey, Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: a Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel, The H I Nearby Galaxy Survey, and HERA CO-Line Extragalactic Survey. Making use of a novel split of the overall light distribution as a function of spatial scale, we subtracted the diffuse background in the SFR tracers as well as the atomic gas. Using aperture photometry, we study the Schmidt relations on background subtracted and unsubtracted data at physical scales varying between 0.5–2 kpc. Results. The fraction of diffuse background varies from galaxy to galaxy and accounts to ∼34% in Hα, ∼43% in FUV, ∼37% in 24 μm, and ∼75% in H I on average. We find that the inclusion of diffuse background in SFR tracers leads to a linear molecular gas Schmidt relation and a bimodal total gas Schmidt relation. However, the removal of diffuse background in SFR tracers leads to a super-linear molecular gas Schmidt relation. A further removal of the diffuse background from atomic gas results in a slope ∼1.4 ± 0.1, which agrees with dynamical models of star formation accounting for flaring effects in the outer regions of galaxies.

2020 ◽  
Vol 496 (4) ◽  
pp. 4606-4623 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Morselli ◽  
G Rodighiero ◽  
A Enia ◽  
E Corbelli ◽  
V Casasola ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In this work, we analyse the connection between gas availability and the position of a region with respect to the spatially resolved main-sequence (MS) relation. Following the procedure presented in Enia et al. (2020), for a sample of five face-on, grand design spiral galaxies located on the MS we obtain estimates of stellar mass and star formation rate surface densities (Σ⋆ and ΣSFR) within cells of 500 pc size. Thanks to H i 21cm and 12CO(2–1) maps of comparable resolution, within the same cells we estimate the surface densities of the atomic (ΣH i) and molecular ($\Sigma _{\rm {H_2}}$) gas and explore the correlations among all these quantities. Σ⋆, ΣSFR, and $\Sigma _{\rm {H_2}}$ define a 3D relation whose projections are the spatially resolved MS, the Kennicutt–Schmidt law and the molecular gas MS. We find that $\Sigma _{\rm {H_2}}$ steadily increases along the MS relation and is almost constant perpendicular to it. ΣH i is nearly constant along the MS and increases in its upper envelope. As a result, ΣSFR can be expressed as a function of Σ⋆ and ΣH i, following the relation log ΣSFR = 0.97log Σ⋆ + 1.99log ΣH i − 11.11. We show that the total gas fraction significantly increases towards the starburst regions, accompanied by a weak increase in star formation efficiency. Finally, we find that H2/H i varies strongly with the distance from the MS, dropping dramatically in regions of intense star formation, where the UV radiation from newly formed stars dissociates the H2 molecule, illustrating the self-regulating nature of the star formation process.


Author(s):  
Angus Mok ◽  
Christine Wilson

AbstractWe studied molecular gas properties in a sample of 98 Hi - flux selected spiral galaxies within ~ 25 Mpc using the CO J = 3 − 2 line, observed with the JCMT, and subdivided into isolated, group, and Virgo subsamples. We find a larger mean H2 mass in the Virgo galaxies compared to group galaxies, despite their lower mean Hi mass. Combining our data with complementary Hα star formation rate measurements, Virgo galaxies have a longer molecular gas depletion times compared to group galaxies, perhaps due to heating processes in the cluster environment or differences in the turbulent pressure.


2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (2) ◽  
pp. 2305-2320
Author(s):  
Michael J Greener ◽  
Alfonso Aragón-Salamanca ◽  
Michael R Merrifield ◽  
Thomas G Peterken ◽  
Amelia Fraser-McKelvie ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Dust attenuation in star-forming spiral galaxies affects stars and gas in different ways due to local variations in dust geometry. We present spatially resolved measurements of dust attenuation for a sample of 232 such star-forming spiral galaxies, derived from spectra acquired by the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey. The dust attenuation affecting the stellar populations of these galaxies (obtained using full spectrum stellar population fitting methods) is compared with the dust attenuation in the gas (derived from the Balmer decrement). Both of these attenuation measures increase for local regions of galaxies with higher star formation rates; the dust attenuation affecting the stellar populations increases more so than the dust attenuation in the gas, causing the ratio of the dust attenuation affecting the stellar populations to the dust attenuation in the gas to decrease for local regions of galaxies with higher star formation rate densities. No systematic difference is discernible in any of these dust attenuation quantities between the spiral arm and interarm regions of the galaxies. While both the dust attenuation in the gas and the dust attenuation affecting the stellar populations decrease with galactocentric radius, the ratio of the two quantities does not vary with radius. This ratio does, however, decrease systematically as the stellar mass of the galaxy increases. Analysis of the radial profiles of the two dust attenuation measures suggests that there is a disproportionately high concentration of birth clouds (incorporating gas, young stars, and clumpy dust) nearer to the centres of star-forming spiral galaxies.


Author(s):  
Xu Kong ◽  
Ning Hu ◽  
Fuzhen Cheng

AbstractStar-formation regions in nearby galaxies provide an excellent laboratory to study star formation processes, evolution of massive stars and the properties of the surrounding interstellar medium. A wealth of information can be obtained from their spectral analysis of the emission lines and the stellar continuum. Considering these, we proposed a long-term project “Spectroscopic Observations of the Star Formation Regions in Nearby Galaxies”. The primary goal of this project is to observe spectroscopy of star formation regions in 20 nearby galaxies, with the NAOC 2.16 m telescope and the Hectospec/MMT multifiber spectrograph. With the spectra of a large sample of star formation regions, combining multi-wavelength data from UV to IR, we can investigate, understand and quantify the dust extinction, star formation rate, metal abundance, and the two-dimensional distributions of stellar population properties of nearby galaxies. It will be important for a better understanding of galaxy formation. Here we report on the observations, data reduction, and analysis of the spectra of ~ 400 star formation regions in M33, via multifiber spectroscopy with Hectospec at the MMT.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S292) ◽  
pp. 245-245
Author(s):  
Jian Fu ◽  
Guinevere Kauffmann

AbstractWe study the redshift evolution of neutral and molecular gas in the interstellar medium with the results from semi-analytic models of galaxy formation and evolution, which track the cold gas related physical processes in radially resolved galaxy disks. Two kinds of prescriptions are adopted to describe the conversion between molecular and neutral gas in the ISM: one is related to the gas surface density and gas metallicity based on the model results by Krumholz, Mckee & Tumlinson; the other is related the pressure of ISM. We try four types of star formation laws in the models to study the effect of the molecular gas component and the star formation time scale on the model results, and find that the H2 dependent star formation rate with constant star formation efficiency is the preferred star formation law. We run the models based on both Millennium and Millennium II Simulation haloes, and the model parameters are adjusted to fit the observations at z = 0 from THINGS/HERACLES and ALFALFA/COLD GASS. We give predictions for the redshift evolution of cosmic star formation density, H2 to HI cosmic ratios, gas to star mass ratios and gas metallicity vs stellar mass relation. Based on the model results, we find that: (i) the difference in the H2 to HI ratio at z > 3 between the two H2 fraction prescriptions can help future observations to test which prescription is better; (ii) a constant redshift independent star formation time scale will postpone the star formation processes at high redshift and cause obvious redshift evolution for the relation between gas metallicity and stellar mass in galaxies at z < 3.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (S309) ◽  
pp. 305-305
Author(s):  
Cristina Catalán-Torrecilla ◽  
Armando Gil de Paz ◽  
África Castillo-Morales ◽  
Jorge Iglesias-Páramo ◽  
Sebastián F. Sánchez ◽  
...  

AbstractThe study of the star formation rate (SFR) is crucial for understanding the birth and evolution of the galaxies (Kennicutt 1998), with this aim in mind, we make use of a well-characterized sample of 380 nearby galaxies from the CALIFA survey that fill the entire color-magnitude diagram in the Local Universe. The availability of wide-field CALIFA IFS ensures a proper determination of the underlying stellar continuum and, consequently, of the extiction-corrected Hα luminosity. We compare our integrated Hα-based SFRs with single and hybrids tracers at other wavelengths found in the literature (Calzetti 2013). Then, we provide a new set of single-band and hybrid calibrators anchored to the extinction-corrected Hα luminosities. In the case of the hybrid calibrators we determine the best fitting aIR coefficients for different combinations of observed (UV or Hα) and dust-reprocessed (22μm or TIR) SFR contributions (where SFR ∝ Lobs + aIR × L[IR]). This analysis allow us to provide, for the first time, a set of hybrid calibrations for different morphological types and masses. These are particularly useful in case that the sample to be analyzed shows a different bias in terms of morphology or, more commonly, luminosity or stellar mass. We also study the dependence of this coefficient with color and ionized-gas attenuation. The distributions of aIR values are quite wide in all cases. We found that not single physical property can by itself explain the variation found in aIR.Finally, we explore the spatial distribution of the SFR by measuring the contribution of disks to the total SFR in the Local Universe. Our preliminary spatially-resolved analysis shows that the disk to total (disk + spheroidal component) SFR ratio is on average ∼ 88%. The use of the 2D spectroscopic data is critical to properly determine the Hα luminosity function and SFR density in the Local Universe per galaxy components, the ultimate goal of this project.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bunyo Hatsukade ◽  
Kana Morokuma-Matsui ◽  
Masao Hayashi ◽  
Nozomu Tominaga ◽  
Yoichi Tamura ◽  
...  

Abstract We present the results of CO(1–0) observations of the host galaxy of a Type I superluminous supernova (SLSN-I), SN 2017egm, one of the closest SLSNe-I at z = 0.03063, by using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The molecular gas mass of the host galaxy is Mgas = (4.8 ± 0.3) × 109 M⊙, placing it on the sequence of normal star-forming galaxies in an Mgas–star-formation rate (SFR) plane. The molecular hydrogen column density at the location of SN 2017egm is higher than that of the Type II SN PTF10bgl, which is also located in the same host galaxy, and those of other Type II and Ia SNe located in different galaxies, suggesting that SLSNe-I have a preference for a dense molecular gas environment. On the other hand, the column density at the location of SN 2017egm is comparable to those of Type Ibc SNe. The surface densities of molecular gas and the SFR at the location of SN 2017egm are consistent with those of spatially resolved local star-forming galaxies and follow the Schmidt–Kennicutt relation. These facts suggest that SLSNe-I can occur in environments with the same star-formation mechanism as in normal star-forming galaxies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (1) ◽  
pp. 1518-1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogemar A Riffel ◽  
Nadia L Zakamska ◽  
Rogério Riffel

ABSTRACT In most galaxies, the fluxes of rotational H2 lines strongly correlate with star formation diagnostics [such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)], suggesting that H2 emission from warm molecular gas is a minor by-product of star formation. We analyse the optical properties of a sample of 309 nearby galaxies derived from a parent sample of 2015 objects observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope. We find a correlation between the [O i]λ6300 emission-line flux and kinematics and the H2 S(3) 9.665 $\mu\mathrm{ m}$/PAH 11.3  $\mu\mathrm{ m}$. The [O i]λ6300 kinematics in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) cannot be explained only by gas motions due to the gravitational potential of their host galaxies, suggesting that AGN-driven outflows are important to the observed kinematics. While H2 excess also correlates with the fluxes and kinematics of ionized gas (probed by [O iii]), the correlation with [O i] is much stronger, suggesting that H2 and [O i] emissions probe the same phase or tightly coupled phases of the wind. We conclude that the excess of H2 emission seen in AGNs is produced by shocks due to AGN-driven outflows and in the same clouds that produce the [O i] emission. Our results provide an indirect detection of neutral and molecular winds and suggest a new way to select galaxies that likely host molecular outflows. Further ground- and space-based spatially resolved observations of different phases of the molecular gas (cold, warm, and hot) are necessary to test our new selection method.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kana Morokuma-Matsui ◽  
Kazuo Sorai ◽  
Yuya Sato ◽  
Nario Kuno ◽  
Tsutomu T Takeuchi ◽  
...  

Abstract We investigate the molecular gas properties of galaxies across the main sequence of star-forming (SF) galaxies in the local Universe using 12CO(J = 1–0), hereafter 12CO, and 13CO(J = 1–0), hereafter 13CO, mapping data of 147 nearby galaxies obtained in the COMING project, a legacy project of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratios of both lines, we stack all the pixels where 12CO emission is detected after aligning the line center expected from the first-moment map of 12CO. As a result, 13CO emission is successfully detected in 80 galaxies with a signal-to-noise ratio larger than three. The error-weighted mean of the integrated-intensity ratio of 12CO to 13CO lines (R1213) of the 80 galaxies is 10.9, with a standard deviation of 7.0. We find that (1) R1213 positively correlates to specific star-formation rate (sSFR) with a correlation coefficient of 0.46, and (2) both the flux ratio of IRAS 60 μm to 100 μm (f60/f100) and the inclination-corrected linewidth of 12CO stacked spectra ($\sigma _{{\rm ^{12}CO},i}$) also correlate with sSFR for galaxies with the R1213 measurement. Our results support the scenario where R1213 variation is mainly caused by changes in molecular gas properties such as temperature and turbulence. The consequent variation of the CO-to-H2 conversion factor across the SF main sequence is not large enough to completely extinguish the known correlations between sSFR and Mmol/Mstar (μmol) or star-formation efficiency (SFE) reported in previous studies, while this variation would strengthen (weaken) the sSFR–SFE (sSFR–μmol) correlation.


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