TY - JOUR
T1 - Star Formation Laws and Efficiencies across 80 Nearby Galaxies
AU - Sun, Jiayi
AU - Leroy, Adam K.
AU - Ostriker, Eve C.
AU - Meidt, Sharon
AU - Rosolowsky, Erik
AU - Schinnerer, Eva
AU - Wilson, Christine D.
AU - Utomo, Dyas
AU - Belfiore, Francesco
AU - Blanc, Guillermo A.
AU - Emsellem, Eric
AU - Faesi, Christopher
AU - Groves, Brent
AU - Hughes, Annie
AU - Koch, Eric W.
AU - Kreckel, Kathryn
AU - Liu, Daizhong
AU - Pan, Hsi An
AU - Pety, Jérôme
AU - Querejeta, Miguel
AU - Razza, Alessandro
AU - Saito, Toshiki
AU - Sardone, Amy
AU - Usero, Antonio
AU - Williams, Thomas G.
AU - Bigiel, Frank
AU - Bolatto, Alberto D.
AU - Chevance, Mélanie
AU - Dale, Daniel A.
AU - Gensior, Jindra
AU - Glover, Simon C.O.
AU - Grasha, Kathryn
AU - Henshaw, Jonathan D.
AU - Jiménez-Donaire, María J.
AU - Klessen, Ralf S.
AU - Kruijssen, J. M.Diederik
AU - Murphy, Eric J.
AU - Neumann, Lukas
AU - Teng, Yu Hsuan
AU - Thilker, David A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA.
Funding Information:
This work is based in part on observations made with the ATCA. ATCA is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility, which is funded by the Australian Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO.
Funding Information:
J.S. acknowledges support by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through a Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) National Fellowship. The work of A.K.L. is partially supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant Nos. 1615105, 1615109, and 1653300. The work of E.C.O. was partly supported by grant No. 510940 from the Simons Foundation. E.R. acknowledges the support of NSERC, funding reference number RGPIN-2022-03499. The research of C.D.W. is supported by grants from NSERC and the Canada Research Chairs program. G.A.B. acknowledges the support from ANID Basal project FB210003. A.H. was supported by the Programme National Cosmology et Galaxies (PNCG) of CNRS/INSU with INP and IN2P3, cofunded by CEA and CNES, and by the Programme National “Physique et Chimie du Milieu Interstellaire” (PCMI) of CNRS/INSU with INC/INP, cofunded by CEA and CNES. E.W.K. acknowledges support from the Smithsonian Institution as a Submillimeter Array (SMA) Fellow and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. K.K. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the form of an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant No. KR4598/2-1, PI Kreckel). H.A.P. acknowledges support by the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan under grant 110-2112-M-032-020-MY3. J.P. acknowledges support by the DAOISM grant ANR-21-CE31-0010 and by the Programme National “PCMI” of CNRS/INSU with INC/INP, cofunded by CEA and CNES. M.Q. acknowledges support from the Spanish grant PID2019-106027GA-C44, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. A.S. is supported by an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-1903834. A.U. acknowledges support from the Spanish grants PGC2018-094671-B-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A Way of Making Europe,” and PID2019-108765GB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. E.S. and T.G.W. acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 694343). F.Bi acknowledges funding from the ERC under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 726384/Empire). A.D.B. acknowledges partial support from NSF-AST2108140. M.C. gratefully acknowledges funding from the DFG through an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant No. CH2137/1-1). COOL Research DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization supporting research in astrophysics aimed at uncovering our cosmic origins. J.G. gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant No. CRSII5_193826). S.C.O.G. and R.S.K. acknowledge funding from the ERC via the Synergy Grant “ECOGAL” (project ID 855130). They also acknowledge funding from the DFG via the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 881—138713538), “The Milky Way System” (subprojects A1, B1, B2, and B8), from the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence (EXC 2181-390900948) “STRUCTURES,” and from the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in project “MAINN” (funding ID 50OO2206). K.G. is supported by the Australian Research Council through the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship DE220100766 funded by the Australian Government. K.G. is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project No. CE170100013. J.M.D.K. gratefully acknowledges funding from the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program via the ERC Starting Grant MUSTANG (grant No. 714907).
Funding Information:
This work has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which are funded by NASA and operated by the California Institute of Technology.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - 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-H2 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-H2 conversion factors can additionally produce uncertainties of 20%-25% for the slope and 0.10-0.20 dex for the normalization.
AB - 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-H2 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-H2 conversion factors can additionally produce uncertainties of 20%-25% for the slope and 0.10-0.20 dex for the normalization.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150026193&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/acbd9c
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/acbd9c
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85150026193
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 945
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
M1 - L19
ER -