The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
Star Formation Laws and Efficiencies across 80 Nearby Galaxies
- Jiayi Sun,
- Adam K. Leroy,
- Eve C. Ostriker,
- Sharon Meidt,
- Erik Rosolowsky,
- Eva Schinnerer,
- Christine D. Wilson,
- Dyas Utomo,
- Francesco Belfiore,
- Guillermo A. Blanc,
- Eric Emsellem,
- Christopher Faesi,
- Brent Groves,
- Annie Hughes,
- Eric W. Koch,
- Kathryn Kreckel,
- Daizhong Liu,
- Hsi-An Pan,
- Jérôme Pety,
- Miguel Querejeta,
- Alessandro Razza,
- Toshiki Saito,
- Amy Sardone,
- Antonio Usero,
- Thomas G. Williams,
- Frank Bigiel,
- Alberto D. Bolatto,
- Mélanie Chevance,
- Daniel A. Dale,
- Jindra Gensior,
- Simon C. O. Glover,
- Kathryn Grasha,
- Jonathan D. Henshaw,
- María J. Jiménez-Donaire,
- Ralf S. Klessen,
- J. M. Diederik Kruijssen,
- Eric J. Murphy,
- Lukas Neumann,
- Yu-Hsuan Teng,
- David A. Thilker
Affiliations
- Jiayi Sun
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University , 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada ; [email protected]; Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), University of Toronto , 60 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H8, Canada
- Adam K. Leroy
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University , 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (CCAPP) , 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- Eve C. Ostriker
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544 USA
- Sharon Meidt
- ORCiD
- Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent , Krijgslaan 281 S9, B-9000 Gent, Belgium
- Erik Rosolowsky
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Alberta , Edmonton, AB T6G 2E1, Canada
- Eva Schinnerer
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie , Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany
- Christine D. Wilson
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University , 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada ; [email protected]
- Dyas Utomo
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475, USA
- Francesco Belfiore
- ORCiD
- INAF—Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri , Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50157, Firenze, Italy
- Guillermo A. Blanc
- ORCiD
- Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science , 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA; Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile , Camino del Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
- Eric Emsellem
- ORCiD
- European Southern Observatory , Karl-Schwarzschild Straße 2, D-85748 Garching bei München, Germany; Univ Lyon, Univ Lyon 1, ENS de Lyon, CNRS, Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon UMR5574, F-69230 Saint-Genis-Laval, France
- Christopher Faesi
- ORCiD
- University of Massachusetts Amherst , 710 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Brent Groves
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, University of Western Australia , 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Annie Hughes
- ORCiD
- CNRS, IRAP, 9 Av. du Colonel Roche, BP 44346, F-31028 Toulouse cedex 4, France
- Eric W. Koch
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Kathryn Kreckel
- ORCiD
- Astronomisches Rechen-Institut , Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstraße 12-14, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Daizhong Liu
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik , Giessenbachstraße 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Hsi-An Pan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Tamkang University , No.151, Yingzhuan Rd., Tamsui Dist., New Taipei City 251301, Taiwan
- Jérôme Pety
- ORCiD
- Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) , 300 Rue de la Piscine, F-38406 Saint Martin d’Hères, France; Sorbonne Université, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL , CNRS, LERMA, F-75014, Paris, France
- Miguel Querejeta
- ORCiD
- Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (IGN) , C/Alfonso XII, 3, E-28014 Madrid, Spain
- Alessandro Razza
- ORCiD
- Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile , Camino del Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
- Toshiki Saito
- ORCiD
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan , 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588, Japan
- Amy Sardone
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University , 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (CCAPP) , 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- Antonio Usero
- ORCiD
- Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (IGN) , C/Alfonso XII, 3, E-28014 Madrid, Spain
- Thomas G. Williams
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie , Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany; Sub-department of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford , Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK
- Frank Bigiel
- ORCiD
- Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn , Auf dem Hügel 71, D-53121 Bonn, Germany
- Alberto D. Bolatto
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland , College Park, MD 20742, USA
- Mélanie Chevance
- ORCiD
- Universität Heidelberg , Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str 2, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany; Cosmic Origins Of Life (COOL) Research DAO40
- Daniel A. Dale
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming , Laramie, WY 82071, USA
- Jindra Gensior
- ORCiD
- Institute for Computational Science, University of Zürich , Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland
- Simon C. O. Glover
- ORCiD
- Universität Heidelberg , Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str 2, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Kathryn Grasha
- ORCiD
- Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University , Canberra, ACT 2611, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) , Australia
- Jonathan D. Henshaw
- ORCiD
- Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie , Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg, Germany; Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University , IC2, Liverpool Science Park, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L3 5RF, UK
- María J. Jiménez-Donaire
- ORCiD
- Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (IGN) , C/Alfonso XII, 3, E-28014 Madrid, Spain
- Ralf S. Klessen
- ORCiD
- Universität Heidelberg , Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str 2, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany; Universität Heidelberg , Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Wissenschaftliches Rechnen, Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- J. M. Diederik Kruijssen
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Origins Of Life (COOL) Research DAO40
- Eric J. Murphy
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475, USA
- Lukas Neumann
- ORCiD
- Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn , Auf dem Hügel 71, D-53121 Bonn, Germany
- Yu-Hsuan Teng
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Department of Physics, University of California , San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
- David A. Thilker
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acbd9c
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 945,
no. 2
p. L19
Abstract
We measure empirical relationships between the local star formation rate (SFR) and properties of the star-forming molecular gas on 1.5 kpc scales across 80 nearby galaxies. These relationships, commonly referred to as “star formation laws,” aim at predicting the local SFR surface density from various combinations of molecular gas surface density, galactic orbital time, molecular cloud free fall time, and the interstellar medium dynamical equilibrium pressure. Leveraging a multiwavelength database built for the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) survey, we measure these quantities consistently across all galaxies and quantify systematic uncertainties stemming from choices of SFR calibrations and the CO-to-H _2 conversion factors. The star formation laws we examine show 0.3–0.4 dex of intrinsic scatter, among which the molecular Kennicutt–Schmidt relation shows a ∼10% larger scatter than the other three. The slope of this relation ranges β ≈ 0.9–1.2, implying that the molecular gas depletion time remains roughly constant across the environments probed in our sample. The other relations have shallower slopes ( β ≈ 0.6–1.0), suggesting that the star formation efficiency per orbital time, the star formation efficiency per free fall time, and the pressure-to-SFR surface density ratio (i.e., the feedback yield) vary systematically with local molecular gas and SFR surface densities. Last but not least, the shapes of the star formation laws depend sensitively on methodological choices. Different choices of SFR calibrations can introduce systematic uncertainties of at least 10%–15% in the star formation law slopes and 0.15–0.25 dex in their normalization, while the CO-to-H _2 conversion factors can additionally produce uncertainties of 20%–25% for the slope and 0.10–0.20 dex for the normalization.
Keywords
