scholarly journals The life cycle of the Central Molecular Zone – I. Inflow, star formation, and winds

2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (3) ◽  
pp. 4401-4418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Armillotta ◽  
Mark R Krumholz ◽  
Enrico M Di Teodoro ◽  
N M McClure-Griffiths

ABSTRACT We present a study of the gas cycle and star formation history in the central 500 pc of the Milky Way, known as Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). Through hydrodynamical simulations of the inner 4.5 kpc of our Galaxy, we follow the gas cycle in a completely self-consistent way, starting from gas radial inflow due to the Galactic bar, the channelling of this gas into a dense, star-forming ring/stream at ≈200–300 pc from the Galactic centre, and the launching of galactic outflows powered by stellar feedback. We find that star formation activity in the CMZ goes through oscillatory burst/quench cycles, with a period of tens to hundreds of Myr, characterized by roughly constant gas mass but order-of-magnitude level variations in the star formation rate. Comparison with the observed present-day star formation rate of the CMZ suggests that we are currently near a minimum of this cycle. Stellar feedback drives a mainly two-phase wind off the Galactic disc. The warm phase dominates the mass flux, and carries $100\!-\!200{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the gas mass converted into stars. However, most of this gas goes into a fountain and falls back on to the disc rather than escaping the Galaxy. The hot phase carries most of the energy, with a time-averaged energy outflow rate of $10\!-\!20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the supernova energy budget.

Author(s):  
Yusuke Fujimoto ◽  
Elizabeth J. Tasker ◽  
Greg L. Bryan ◽  
Asao Habe

AbstractWe performed high resolution 3D hydrodynamical simulations of the barred galaxy M83 and investigated formation and evolution of the giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and star formation activity. We compared two simulations with and without stellar feedback. We found that the feedback disperses the cloud gas and causes clouds to inflow toward the galactic centre region due to hydrodynamical drag. The effect raises the star formation rate (SFR) and star formation efficiency (SFE) in the central bar region.


Author(s):  
James E. Upjohn ◽  
Michael J. I. Brown ◽  
Andrew M. Hopkins ◽  
Nicolas J. Bonne

AbstractWe measure the cosmic star formation history out to z = 1.3 using a sample of 918 radio-selected star-forming galaxies within the 2-deg2 COSMOS field. To increase our sample size, we combine 1.4-GHz flux densities from the VLA-COSMOS catalogue with flux densities measured from the VLA-COSMOS radio continuum image at the positions of I < 26.5 galaxies, enabling us to detect 1.4-GHz sources as faint as 40 μJy. We find that radio measurements of the cosmic star formation history are highly dependent on sample completeness and models used to extrapolate the faint end of the radio luminosity function. For our preferred model of the luminosity function, we find the star formation rate density increases from 0.017 M⊙ yr−1 Mpc−3 at z ∼ 0.225 to 0.092 M⊙ yr−1 Mpc−3 at z ∼ 1.1, which agrees to within 40% of recent UV, IR and 3-GHz measurements of the cosmic star formation history.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (14) ◽  
pp. 248-248
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Bunker ◽  
Elizabeth R. Stanway ◽  
Laurence P. Eyles ◽  
Richard S. Ellis ◽  
Richard G. McMahon ◽  
...  

AbstractWe discuss the selection of star-forming galaxies at z≃6 through the Lyman-break technique. Spitzer imaging implies many of these contain older stellar populations (>200Myr) which produce detectable Balmer breaks. The ages and stellar masses (∼1010M⊙) imply that the star formation rate density at earlier epochs may have been significantly higher than at z≃6, and might have played a key role in re-ionizing the universe.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 374-374
Author(s):  
Matthieu Bethermin

AbstractSome recent works indicate that most star-forming galaxies follow a main sequence in the SFR-stellar mass plane with a surprisingly low scatter of ≈0.2 dex, suggesting that the star formation in these objects is driven by secular processes. Nevertheless, Herschel identified a population of starbursting galaxies, probably triggered by mergers, which display a large excess of specific star formation rate (sSFR=SFR/Mstar) compared to the main sequence. We will present a new set of models for the contribution of these two populations to the IR/sub-mm luminosity function, but also to source counts selected at various wavelengths.Our model is based on the stellar mass function of star-forming galaxies, the distribution of sSFR measured at z=2 and its double-Gaussian decomposition, and the observed evolution of the main sequence in the sSFR-Mass plane as a function of redshift. We found that the non-Schechter bright-end of the LF is due to the starbursting galaxies, which represent only 4% in number density and 15% in luminosity density. This fraction of starbursts is remarkably constant with the redshift at 0<z<2, contrary to naive expectation from hierarchical merging. It thus suggests that the majority of stars in the Universe were formed through secular processes. We will then discuss the contribution of starbursting and main sequence galaxies to the number counts and the selection effects towards starbursts sources for various flux-limited IR/sub-mm samples.We will also present studies of the clustering properties of the main sequence and starburst galaxies at z 2. These measurements suggest strong links between star formation rate, stellar mass and halo mass in the main sequence galaxies. In addition, we will present some clues suggesting that main sequence and starbursting galaxies follows the same M*-Mhalo relation.”


2022 ◽  
Vol 924 (2) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Hiddo S. B. Algera ◽  
Jacqueline A. Hodge ◽  
Dominik A. Riechers ◽  
Sarah K. Leslie ◽  
Ian Smail ◽  
...  

Abstract Radio free–free emission is considered to be one of the most reliable tracers of star formation in galaxies. However, as it constitutes the faintest part of the radio spectrum—being roughly an order of magnitude less luminous than radio synchrotron emission at the GHz frequencies typically targeted in radio surveys—the usage of free–free emission as a star formation rate tracer has mostly remained limited to the local universe. Here, we perform a multifrequency radio stacking analysis using deep Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array observations at 1.4, 3, 5, 10, and 34 GHz in the COSMOS and GOODS-North fields to probe free–free emission in typical galaxies at the peak of cosmic star formation. We find that z ∼ 0.5–3 star-forming galaxies exhibit radio emission at rest-frame frequencies of ∼65–90 GHz that is ∼1.5–2 times fainter than would be expected from a simple combination of free–free and synchrotron emission, as in the prototypical starburst galaxy M82. We interpret this as a deficit in high-frequency synchrotron emission, while the level of free–free emission is as expected from M82. We additionally provide the first constraints on the cosmic star formation history using free–free emission at 0.5 ≲ z ≲ 3, which are in good agreement with more established tracers at high redshift. In the future, deep multifrequency radio surveys will be crucial in order to accurately determine the shape of the radio spectrum of faint star-forming galaxies, and to further establish radio free–free emission as a tracer of high-redshift star formation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A37 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Bassini ◽  
E. Rasia ◽  
S. Borgani ◽  
G. L. Granato ◽  
C. Ragone-Figueroa ◽  
...  

Aims. We studied the star formation rate (SFR) in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy (proto-)clusters in the redshift range 0 <  z <  4, comparing them to recent observational studies; we also investigated the effect of varying the parameters of the star formation model on galaxy properties such as SFR, star-formation efficiency, and gas fraction. Methods. We analyse a set of zoom-in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations centred on 12 clusters. The simulations are carried out with the GADGET-3 Tree-PM smoothed-particle hydro-dynamics code which includes various subgrid models to treat unresolved baryonic physics, including AGN feedback. Results. Simulations do not reproduce the high values of SFR observed within protocluster cores, where the values of SFR are underpredicted by a factor ≳4 both at z ∼ 2 and z ∼ 4. The difference arises as simulations are unable to reproduce the observed starburst population and is greater at z ∼ 2 because simulations underpredict the normalisation of the main sequence (MS) of star forming galaxies (i.e. the correlation between stellar mass and SFR) by a factor of ∼3. As the low normalisation of the MS seems to be driven by an underestimated gas fraction, it remains unclear whether numerical simulations miss starburst galaxies due to overly underpredicted gas fractions or overly low star formation efficiencies. Our results are stable against varying several parameters of the star formation subgrid model and do not depend on the details of AGN feedback. Conclusions. The subgrid model for star formation, introduced to reproduce the self-regulated evolution of quiescent galaxies, is not suitable to describe violent events like high-redshift starbursts. We find that this conclusion holds, independently of the parameter choice for the star formation and AGN models. The increasing number of multi-wavelength high-redshift observations will help to improve the current star formation model, which is needed to fully recover the observed star formation history of galaxy clusters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. A26 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. S. Pilyugin ◽  
E. K. Grebel ◽  
I. A. Zinchenko ◽  
J. M. Vílchez ◽  
F. Sakhibov ◽  
...  

We derive the photometric, kinematic, and abundance characteristics of 18 star-forming MaNGA galaxies with fairly regular velocity fields and surface brightness distributions and with a large offset between the measured position angles of the major kinematic and photometric axes, ΔPA ≳ 20°. The aim is to examine if there is any other distinctive characteristic common to these galaxies. We found morphological signs of interaction in some (in 11 out of 18) but not in all galaxies. The observed velocity fields show a large variety; the maps of the isovelocities vary from an hourglass-like appearance to a set of straight lines. The position angles of the major kinematic axes of the stellar and gas rotations are close to each other. The values of the central oxygen abundance, radial abundance gradient, and star formation rate are distributed within the intervals defined by galaxies with small (no) ΔPA of similar mass. Thus, we do not find any specific characteristic common to all galaxies with large ΔPA. Instead, the properties of these galaxies are similar to those of galaxies with small (no) ΔPA. This suggests that either the reason responsible for the large ΔPA does not influence other characteristics or the galaxies with large ΔPA do not share a common origin, they can, instead, originate through different channels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 501 (2) ◽  
pp. 1803-1822
Author(s):  
Seunghwan Lim ◽  
Douglas Scott ◽  
Arif Babul ◽  
David J Barnes ◽  
Scott T Kay ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT As progenitors of the most massive objects, protoclusters are key to tracing the evolution and star formation history of the Universe, and are responsible for ${\gtrsim }\, 20$ per cent of the cosmic star formation at $z\, {\gt }\, 2$. Using a combination of state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations and empirical models, we show that current galaxy formation models do not produce enough star formation in protoclusters to match observations. We find that the star formation rates (SFRs) predicted from the models are an order of magnitude lower than what is seen in observations, despite the relatively good agreement found for their mass-accretion histories, specifically that they lie on an evolutionary path to become Coma-like clusters at $z\, {\simeq }\, 0$. Using a well-studied protocluster core at $z\, {=}\, 4.3$ as a test case, we find that star formation efficiency of protocluster galaxies is higher than predicted by the models. We show that a large part of the discrepancy can be attributed to a dependence of SFR on the numerical resolution of the simulations, with a roughly factor of 3 drop in SFR when the spatial resolution decreases by a factor of 4. We also present predictions up to $z\, {\simeq }\, 7$. Compared to lower redshifts, we find that centrals (the most massive member galaxies) are more distinct from the other galaxies, while protocluster galaxies are less distinct from field galaxies. All these results suggest that, as a rare and extreme population at high z, protoclusters can help constrain galaxy formation models tuned to match the average population at $z\, {\simeq }\, 0$.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (3) ◽  
pp. 3240-3253
Author(s):  
Amanda R Lopes ◽  
Eduardo Telles ◽  
Jorge Melnick

ABSTRACT We discuss the implications of assuming different star formation histories (SFH) in the relation between star formation rate (SFR) and mass derived by the spectral energy distribution fitting (SED). Our analysis focuses on a sample of H ii galaxies, dwarf starburst galaxies spectroscopically selected through their strong narrow emission lines in SDSS DR13 at z &lt; 0.4, cross-matched with photometric catalogues from GALEX, SDSS, UKIDSS, and WISE. We modelled and fitted the SEDs with the code CIGALE adopting different descriptions of SFH. By adding information from different independent studies, we find that H ii galaxies are best described by episodic SFHs including an old (10 Gyr), an intermediate age (100−1000 Myr) and a recent population with ages &lt; 10 Myr. H ii galaxies agree with the SFR−M* relation from local star-forming galaxies, and only lie above such relation when the current SFR is adopted as opposed to the average over the entire SFH. The SFR−M* demonstrated not to be a good tool to provide additional information about the SFH of H ii galaxies, as different SFH present a similar behaviour with a spread of &lt;0.1 dex.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-53
Author(s):  
Fernanda Roman-Oliveira ◽  
Ana L Chies-Santos ◽  
Fabricio Ferrari ◽  
Geferson Lucatelli ◽  
Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino

ABSTRACT We explore the morphometric properties of a group of 73 ram-pressure stripping candidates in the A901/A902 multicluster system, at z∼ 0.165, to characterize the morphologies and structural evolution of jellyfish galaxies. By employing a quantitative measurement of morphometric indicators with the algorithm morfometryka on Hubble Space Telescope (F606W) images of the galaxies, we present a novel morphology-based method for determining trail vectors. We study the surface brightness profiles and curvature of the candidates and compare the results obtained with two analysis packages, morfometryka and iraf/ellipse on retrieving information of the irregular structures present in the galaxies. Our morphometric analysis shows that the ram-pressure stripping candidates have peculiar concave regions in their surface brightness profiles. Therefore, these profiles are less concentrated (lower Sérsic indices) than other star-forming galaxies that do not show morphological features of ram-pressure stripping. In combination with morphometric trail vectors, this feature could both help identify galaxies undergoing ram-pressure stripping and reveal spatial variations in the star formation rate.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document