TY - JOUR
T1 - VERTICO
T2 - III. The Kennicutt-Schmidt relation in Virgo cluster galaxies
AU - Jiménez-Donaire, María J.
AU - Brown, Toby
AU - Wilson, Christine D.
AU - Roberts, Ian D.
AU - Zabel, Nikki
AU - Ellison, Sara L.
AU - Thorp, Mallory
AU - Villanueva, Vicente
AU - Chown, Ryan
AU - Bisaria, Dhruv
AU - Bolatto, Alberto D.
AU - Boselli, Alessandro
AU - Catinella, Barbara
AU - Chung, Aeree
AU - Cortese, Luca
AU - Davis, Timothy A.
AU - Lagos, Claudia D.P.
AU - Lee, Bumhyun
AU - Parker, Laura C.
AU - Spekkens, Kristine
AU - Stevens, Adam R.H.
AU - Sun, Jiayi
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. MJJD thanks Miguel Querejeta, Eric Pellegrini and Ivana Bešlić for helpful discussions during the development of this work. CDW acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs program. IDR acknowledges support from the ERC Starting Grant Cluster Web 804208. AC acknowledges support by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), grant No. 2018R1D1A1B07048314. Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. LCP acknowledges support from the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada. The work of JS is partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the CITA National Fellowship. V. V. acknowledges support from the scholarship ANID-FULBRIGHT BIO 2016 - 56160020 and funding from NRAO Student Observing Support (SOS) - SOSPA7-014. V. V. acknowledges partial support from NSF-AST1615960. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2019.1.00763.L, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2017.1.00886.L, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00912.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00956.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Funding Information:
MJJD thanks Miguel Querejeta, Eric Pellegrini and Ivana Bešlić for helpful discussions during the development of this work. CDW acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs program. IDR acknowledges support from the ERC Starting Grant Cluster Web 804208. AC acknowledges support by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), grant No. 2018R1D1A1B07048314. Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. LCP acknowledges support from the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada. The work of JS is partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the CITA National Fellowship. V. V. acknowledges support from the scholarship ANID-FULBRIGHT BIO 2016 – 56160020 and funding from NRAO Student Observing Support (SOS) – SOSPA7-014. V. V. acknowledges partial support from NSF-AST1615960. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMAhttps://almascience.nrao.edu/asax/?resultview=observationprojectCode=%222019.1.00763.L%22, ADS/JAO.ALMAhttps://almascience.nrao.edu/asax/?resultview=observationprojectCode=%222017.1.00886.L%22, ADS/JAO.ALMAhttps://almascience.nrao.edu/asax/?resultview=observationprojectCode=%222016.1.00912.S%22, ADS/JAO.ALMAhttps://almascience.nrao.edu/asax/?resultview=observationprojectCode=%222015.1.00956.S%22. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Authors 2023.
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - Aims. In this Virgo Environment Traced in CO (VERTICO) science paper, we aim to study how the star formation process depends on the galactic environment and gravitational interactions in the context of galaxy evolution. We explore the scaling relation between the star formation rate surface density (ΣSFR) and the molecular gas surface density (Σmol), also known as the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation, in a subsample of Virgo cluster spiral galaxies. Methods. We used new Atacama Compact Array and Total Power (ACA+TP) observations from the VERTICO-Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Large Program at 720 pc resolution to resolve the molecular gas content, as traced by the 12CO (2 - 1) transition, across the disks of 37 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster. In combination with archival UV and IR observations used to determine the star formation rate (SFR), we estimated the parameters of the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation for the entire ensemble of galaxies, and within individual galaxies. Results. We find the KS slope for the entire population to be N = 0.97 ± 0.07, with a characteristic molecular gas depletion time of 1.86 Gyr for our full sample, which is in agreement with previous work in isolated, nearby star-forming galaxies. In individual galaxies, we find that the KS slope ranges between 0.69 and 1.40, and that typical star formation efficiencies of molecular gas can vary from galaxy to galaxy by a factor of ∼4. These galaxy-to-galaxy variations account for ∼0.20 dex in scatter in the ensemble KS relation, which is characterized by a 0.42 dex scatter. In addition, we find that the HI-deficient galaxies in the Virgo cluster show a steeper resolved KS relation and lower molecular gas efficiencies than HI-normal cluster galaxies. Conclusions. While the molecular gas content in galaxies residing in the Virgo cluster appears - to first order - to behave similarly to that in isolated galaxies, our VERTICO sample of galaxies shows that cluster environments play a key role in regulating star formation. The environmental mechanisms affecting the HI galaxy content also have a direct impact on the star formation efficiency of molecular gas in cluster galaxies, leading to longer depletion times in HI-deficient members.
AB - Aims. In this Virgo Environment Traced in CO (VERTICO) science paper, we aim to study how the star formation process depends on the galactic environment and gravitational interactions in the context of galaxy evolution. We explore the scaling relation between the star formation rate surface density (ΣSFR) and the molecular gas surface density (Σmol), also known as the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation, in a subsample of Virgo cluster spiral galaxies. Methods. We used new Atacama Compact Array and Total Power (ACA+TP) observations from the VERTICO-Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Large Program at 720 pc resolution to resolve the molecular gas content, as traced by the 12CO (2 - 1) transition, across the disks of 37 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster. In combination with archival UV and IR observations used to determine the star formation rate (SFR), we estimated the parameters of the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation for the entire ensemble of galaxies, and within individual galaxies. Results. We find the KS slope for the entire population to be N = 0.97 ± 0.07, with a characteristic molecular gas depletion time of 1.86 Gyr for our full sample, which is in agreement with previous work in isolated, nearby star-forming galaxies. In individual galaxies, we find that the KS slope ranges between 0.69 and 1.40, and that typical star formation efficiencies of molecular gas can vary from galaxy to galaxy by a factor of ∼4. These galaxy-to-galaxy variations account for ∼0.20 dex in scatter in the ensemble KS relation, which is characterized by a 0.42 dex scatter. In addition, we find that the HI-deficient galaxies in the Virgo cluster show a steeper resolved KS relation and lower molecular gas efficiencies than HI-normal cluster galaxies. Conclusions. While the molecular gas content in galaxies residing in the Virgo cluster appears - to first order - to behave similarly to that in isolated galaxies, our VERTICO sample of galaxies shows that cluster environments play a key role in regulating star formation. The environmental mechanisms affecting the HI galaxy content also have a direct impact on the star formation efficiency of molecular gas in cluster galaxies, leading to longer depletion times in HI-deficient members.
KW - Galaxies: general
KW - Galaxies: ISM
KW - Galaxies: star formation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149393814&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1051/0004-6361/202244718
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202244718
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149393814
SN - 0004-6361
VL - 671
JO - Astronomy & Astrophysics
JF - Astronomy & Astrophysics
M1 - A3
ER -