scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

The Global Schmidt law in star forming galaxies

Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, the Schmidt law was used to model the global star formation law over the full range of gas densities and star formation rates observed in galaxies, and the results showed that the SFR scales with the ratio of the gas density to the average orbital timescale.
Abstract
Measurements of Hα, H I, and CO distributions in 61 normal spiral galaxies are combined with published far-infrared and CO observations of 36 infrared-selected starburst galaxies, in order to study the form of the global star formation law over the full range of gas densities and star formation rates (SFRs) observed in galaxies. The disk-averaged SFRs and gas densities for the combined sample are well represented by a Schmidt law with index N = 1.4 ± 0.15. The Schmidt law provides a surprisingly tight parametrization of the global star formation law, extending over several orders of magnitude in SFR and gas density. An alternative formulation of the star formation law, in which the SFR is presumed to scale with the ratio of the gas density to the average orbital timescale, also fits the data very well. Both descriptions provide potentially useful "recipes" for modeling the SFR in numerical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Metallicity evolution, metallicity gradients and gas fractions at z~3.4

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used near-infrared integral field spectroscopic observations from the AMAZE and LSD programs to constrain the metallicity in a sample of 40 star forming galaxies at 3
Journal ArticleDOI

The origin of dust in high redshift QSOs: the case of SDSS J1148+5251

TL;DR: In this article, a semi-analytical model for the formation and evolution of a high redshift quasar (QSO) was presented, which reconstructs a set of hierarchical merger histories of a 10 13 M⊙ dark matter halo and model the evolution of the corresponding galaxy and its central super massive black hole.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dust heating sources in galaxies: the case of M33 (HERM33ES)

TL;DR: In the context of the Herschel HERM33ES open time key project, the authors in this paper studied the dust emission in the far-infrared at an unequaled resolution and quality up to 500 \mu m.
Journal ArticleDOI

The relationship between star formation rates and mid-infrared emission in galactic disks ?

TL;DR: In this article, a correlation between the mid-infrared and the H line was found to investigate the nature of the link between the far infrared (60 and 100m) and H. The authors derived a calibration of 7 and 15m fluxes in terms of star formation rates from a primary calibration of H in the literature, and also outline the applicability limits of the proposed conversion, which should not blindly extrapolated to objects whose nature is unknown.
Journal ArticleDOI

The atomic-to-molecular transition and its relation to the scaling properties of galaxy discs in the local Universe

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend the existing semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to track atomic and molecular gas in disc galaxies, and fit these models to the radial surface density profiles of stars, H I and H 2 drawn from recent high-resolution surveys of stars and gas in nearby galaxies.
References
More filters
Book

Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison of theory with observations internal dynamics of gaseous nebulae interstellar dust H II regions in the galactic context is presented. But the results are limited to the case of active galactic nuclei.
Journal ArticleDOI

Luminous infrared galaxies

TL;DR: At the highest luminosities (Lir > 1012 ), nearly all objects appear to be advanced mergers powered by a mixture of circumnuclear starburst and active galactic nucleus energy sources, both of which are fueled by an enormous concentration of molecular gas that has been funneled into the merger nucleus as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI

A survey of interstellar H I from L-alpha absorption measurements. II

TL;DR: The Copernicus satellite surveyed the spectral region near L alpha to obtain column densities of interstellar HI toward 100 stars as discussed by the authors, and the value of the mean ratio of total neutral hydrogen to color excess was found to equal 5.8 x 10 to the 21st power atoms per (sq cm x mag).
Journal ArticleDOI

The Rate of Star Formation

Journal ArticleDOI

The Star Formation Law in Galactic Disks

TL;DR: In this article, the dependence of the massive star formation rate (SFR) on the density and dynamics of the interstellar gas was investigated in 15 galaxies and the relationship between the SFR and gas surface density was defined.
Related Papers (5)