The Global Schmidt law in star forming galaxies
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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
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Regulation of Star Formation Rates in Multiphase Galactic Disks: Numerical Tests of the Thermal/Dynamical Equilibrium Model
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Radiation pressure from massive star clusters as a launching mechanism for super-galactic winds
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A simple model for the evolution of disc galaxies: the Milky Way
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The spatially resolved star formation law from integral field spectroscopy: virus-p observations of ngc 5194
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Multi-element Abundance Measurements from Medium-resolution Spectra. IV. Alpha Element Distributions in Milky Way Satellite Galaxies
Evan N. Kirby,Judith G. Cohen,Graeme H. Smith,Steven R. Majewski,Sangmo Tony Sohn,Puragra Guhathakurta +5 more
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References
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