Rm Star Formation Rate Research Articles

Star formation law in the Milky Way

Abstract The Schmidt law (SF law) in the Milky Way was investigated using 3D distribution maps of H ii regions and H i and molecular (H2) gases with spatial resolutions of ∼1 kpc in the Galactic plane and a few tens of pc in the vertical direction. H ii regions were shown to be distributed in a star-forming (SF) disk with nearly constant vertical full thickness 92 pc in spatial coincidence with the molecular gas disk. The vertically averaged volume star formation rate (SFR) ρSFR in the SF disk is related to the surface SFR ΣSFR by ρSFR/[M⊙ yr−1 kpc−3] = 9.26 × ΣSFR/[M⊙ yr−1 kpc−2]. The SF law fitted by a single power law of gas density in the form of $\Sigma _{\rm SFR}\propto \rho _{\rm SFR}\propto \rho _{\rm gas}^\alpha$ and $\propto \Sigma _{\rm gas}^\beta$ showed indices of α =0.78 ± 0.05 for $\rho _{\rm H_2}$ and 2.15 ± 0.08 for ρtotal, and β = 1.14 ± 0.23 for Σtotal, where ρ and Σ denote volume and surface densities, respectively. The star formation rate is shown to be directly related to the molecular gas, but indirectly to H i and total gas densities. The dependence of the SF law on the gaseous phase is explained by the phase transition theory between H i and H2.

A recalibration of strong-line oxygen abundance diagnostics via the direct method and implications for the high-redshift universe

We use direct method oxygen abundances in combination with strong optical emission lines, stellar masses ($M_{\star}$), and star formation rates (SFRs) to recalibrate the N2, O3N2, and N2O2 oxygen abundance diagnostics. We stack spectra of $\sim$200,000 star-forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in bins of $M_{\star}$ and SFR offset from the star forming main sequence to measure the weak emission lines needed to apply the direct method. All three new calibrations are reliable to within $\pm 0.10$ dex from $\log(M_{\star}/M_{\odot}) \sim 7.5 - 10.5$ and up to at least $200~M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ in SFR. The N2O2 diagnostic is the least subject to systematic biases. We apply the diagnostics to galaxies in the local universe and investigate the $M_{\star}$-$Z$-${\rm SFR}$ relation. The N2 and O3N2 diagnostics suggest the SFR dependence of the $M_{\star}$-$Z$-${\rm SFR}$ relation varies with both $M_{\star}$ and $\Delta \log(SSFR)$, whereas the N2O2 diagnostic suggests a nearly constant dependence on SFR. We apply our calibrations to a sample of high redshift galaxies from the literature, and find them to be metal poor relative to local galaxies with similar $M_{\star}$ and SFR. The calibrations do reproduce direct method abundances of the local analogs. We conclude that the $M_{\star}$-$Z$-${\rm SFR}$ relation evolves with redshift.

DISCOVERY OF LARGE MOLECULAR GAS RESERVOIRS IN POST-STARBURST GALAXIES

Post-starburst (or "E+A") galaxies are characterized by low H$\alpha$ emission and strong Balmer absorption, suggesting a recent starburst, but little current star formation. Although many of these galaxies show evidence of recent mergers, the mechanism for ending the starburst is not yet understood. To study the fate of the molecular gas, we search for CO (1-0) and (2-1) emission with the IRAM 30m and SMT 10m telescopes in 32 nearby ($0.01<z<0.12$) post-starburst galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We detect CO in 17 (53%). Using CO as a tracer for molecular hydrogen, and a Galactic conversion factor, we obtain molecular gas masses of $M(H_2)=10^{8.6}$-$10^{9.8} M_\odot$ and molecular gas mass to stellar mass fractions of $\sim10^{-2}$-$10^{-0.5}$, comparable to those of star-forming galaxies. The large amounts of molecular gas rule out complete gas consumption, expulsion, or starvation as the primary mechanism that ends the starburst in these galaxies. The upper limits on $M(H_2)$ for the 15 undetected galaxies range from $10^{7.7} M_\odot$ to $10^{9.7} M_\odot$, with the median more consistent with early-type galaxies than with star-forming galaxies. Upper limits on the post-starburst star formation rates (SFRs) are lower by $\sim10\times$ than for star-forming galaxies with the same $M(H_2)$. We also compare the molecular gas surface densities ($\Sigma_{\rm H_2}$) to upper limits on the SFR surface densities ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$), finding a significant offset, with lower $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ for a given $\Sigma_{\rm H_2}$ than is typical for star-forming galaxies. This offset from the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation suggests that post-starbursts have lower star formation efficiency, a low CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor characteristic of ULIRGs, and/or a bottom-heavy initial mass function, although uncertainties in the rate and distribution of current star formation remain.

C II] 158 μm EMISSION AS A STAR FORMATION TRACER

The [CII] 157.74 $\mu$m transition is the dominant coolant of the neutral interstellar gas, and has great potential as a star formation rate (SFR) tracer. Using the Herschel KINGFISH sample of 46 nearby galaxies, we investigate the relation of [CII] surface brightness and luminosity with SFR. We conclude that [CII] can be used for measurements of SFR on both global and kiloparsec scales in normal star-forming galaxies in the absence of strong active galactic nuclei (AGN). The uncertainty of the $\Sigma_{\rm [CII]}-\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ calibration is $\pm$0.21 dex. The main source of scatter in the correlation is associated with regions that exhibit warm IR colors, and we provide an adjustment based on IR color that reduces the scatter. We show that the color-adjusted $\Sigma_{\rm[CII]}-\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ correlation is valid over almost 5 orders of magnitude in $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, holding for both normal star-forming galaxies and non-AGN luminous infrared galaxies. Using [CII] luminosity instead of surface brightness to estimate SFR suffers from worse systematics, frequently underpredicting SFR in luminous infrared galaxies even after IR color adjustment (although this depends on the SFR measure employed). We suspect that surface brightness relations are better behaved than the luminosity relations because the former are more closely related to the local far-UV field strength, most likely the main parameter controlling the efficiency of the conversion of far-UV radiation into gas heating. A simple model based on Starburst99 population-synthesis code to connect SFR to [CII] finds that heating efficiencies are $1\%-3\%$ in normal galaxies.

Dust correction factors over 0 &lt;z&lt; 3 in massive star-forming galaxies derived from a stacking analysis ofHerscheldata

In this work we use stacking analysis in \emph{Herschel} PACS to study the accuracy of several dust-correction factors typically employed to estimate total star-formation rate (SFR) of high-redshift star-forming (SF) galaxies. We also analyze what stacking suggests about the relation between SFR and stellar mass and the redshift evolution of the specific SFR (${\rm sSFR} = {\rm SFR} / {\rm M_*}$). We find that the dust properties of massive SF galaxies evolve with redshift, being galaxies at $z \sim 2-3$ more attenuated than at $z \sim 1$ for a given UV continuum slope and stellar mass. As a consequence, a single IRX-$\beta$ relation can not be used to recover the total SFR of massive SF galaxies at $0 \lesssim z \lesssim 3$. This might have implications for higher redshift studies, where a single IRX-$\beta$ relation derived for local starburst is usually assumed to be valid. However, we find that the local relation between dust attenuation and stellar mass is valid at least up to $z \sim 1$, although deviations are found for higher redshift galaxies where only $\log{\left( M_* / M_\odot \right)} > 10.25-10.50$ galaxies are detected through stacking. This, therefore, does not rule out the possibility that the local dust-mass relation can be valid for less massive SF galaxies at $z \sim 2-3$. The SED fitting procedure with stellar population templates gives over-estimated values (about 0.3--0.5 dex in $\log{\rm SFR}$) of the dust-corrected SFR at all redshifts studied here. We find that the slope of the main-sequence of star formation is less steep than previously found in massive galaxies with $\log{\left( M_* / M_\odot \right)} \geq 10$, and the redshift evolution of the sSFR reported in previous works in massive is well recovered.

HerMES: dust attenuation and star formation activity in ultraviolet-selected samples from z∼ 4 to ∼ 1.5★

We study the link between observed ultraviolet (UV) luminosity, stellar mass and dust attenuation within rest-frame UV-selected samples at z ∼ 4, ∼ 3 and ∼1.5. We measure by stacking at 250, 350 and 500 μm in the Herschel/Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver images from the Herschel Multi-Tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) program the average infrared luminosity as a function of stellar mass and UV luminosity. We find that dust attenuation is mostly correlated with stellar mass. There is also a secondary dependence with UV luminosity: at a given UV luminosity, dust attenuation increases with stellar mass, while at a given stellar mass it decreases with UV luminosity. We provide new empirical recipes to correct for dust attenuation given the observed UV luminosity and the stellar mass. Our results also enable us to put new constraints on the average relation between star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass at z ∼ 4, ∼3 and ∼1.5. The SFR–stellar mass relations are well described by power laws (⁠|${\rm SFR}\propto M_*^{0.7}$|⁠), with the amplitudes being similar at z ∼ 4 and ∼3, and decreasing by a factor of 4 at z ∼ 1.5 at a given stellar mass. We further investigate the evolution with redshift of the specific SFR. Our results are in the upper range of previous measurements, in particular at z ∼ 3, and are consistent with a plateau at 3 < z < 4. Current model predictions (either analytic, semi-analytic or hydrodynamic) are inconsistent with these values, as they yield lower predictions than the observations in the redshift range we explore. We use these results to discuss the star formation histories of galaxies in the framework of the main sequence of star-forming galaxies. Our results suggest that galaxies at high redshift (2.5 < z < 4) stay around 1 Gyr on the main sequence. With decreasing redshift, this time increases such that z = 1 main-sequence galaxies with |$10^{8}<M_*/\rm {M}_{{\odot }}<10^{10}$| stay on the main sequence until z = 0.

THE ROLES OF RADIATION AND RAM PRESSURE IN DRIVING GALACTIC WINDS

We study gaseous outflows from disk galaxies driven by the combined effects of ram pressure on cold gas clouds and radiation pressure on dust grains. Taking into account the gravity due to disk, bulge and dark matter halo, and assuming continuous star formation in the disk, we show that radiation or ram pressure alone is not sufficient to drive escaping winds from disk galaxies, and that both processes contribute. We show that in the parameter space of star formation rate (SFR) and rotation speed of galaxies, the wind speed in galaxies with rotation speed $v_c\le 200$ km s$^{-1}$ and SFR $\le 100$ M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$, has a larger contribution from ram pressure, and that in high mass galaxies with large SFR, radiation from the disk has a greater role in driving galactic winds. The ratio of wind speed to circular speed can be approximated as ${v_w \over v_c} \sim 10^{0.7} \, [{\rm SFR\over 50 \, {\rm M}_{\odot} \, {\rm yr}^{-1}}] ^{0.4} \ [{v_c\over 120\, km/s}]^ {-1.25}$. We show that this conclusion is borne out by observations of galactic winds at low and high redshift and also of circumgalactic gas. We also estimate the mass loading factors under the combined effect of ram and radiation pressure, and show that the ratio of mass loss rate to SFR scales roughly as $v_c^{-1} \Sigma_g^{-1}$, where $\Sigma_g$ is the gas column density in the disk.

ABSORPTION-LINE PROBES OF THE PREVALENCE AND PROPERTIES OF OUTFLOWS IN PRESENT-DAY STAR-FORMING GALAXIES

We analyze star forming galaxies drawn from SDSS DR7 to show how the interstellar medium (ISM) Na I 5890, 5896 (Na D) absorption lines depend on galaxy physical properties, and to look for evidence of galactic winds. We combine the spectra of galaxies with similar geometry/physical parameters to create composite spectra with signal-to-noise ~300. The stellar continuum is modeled using stellar population synthesis models, and the continuum-normalized spectrum is fit with two Na I absorption components. We find that: (1) ISM Na D absorption lines with equivalent widths EW > 0.8A are only prevalent in disk galaxies with specific properties -- large extinction (Av), high star formation rates (SFR), high star formation rate per unit area ($\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$), or high stellar mass (M*). (2) the ISM Na D absorption lines can be separated into two components: a quiescent disk-like component at the galaxy systemic velocity and an outflow component; (3) the disk-like component is much stronger in the edge-on systems, and the outflow component covers a wide angle but is stronger within 60deg of the disk rotation axis; (4) the EW and covering factor of the disk component correlate strongly with dust attenuation, highlighting the importance that dust shielding may play the survival of Na I. (5) The EW of the outflow component depends primarily on $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ and secondarily on Av; (6) the outflow velocity varies from ~120 to 160km/s but shows little hint of a correlation with galaxy physical properties over the modest dynamic range that our sample probes (1.2 dex in log$\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ and 1 dex in log M*).