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Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100 pc scales in M 51

Querejeta, M. and Schinnerer, E. and Schruba, A. and Murphy, E. and Meidt, S. and Usero, A. and Leroy, A. K. and Pety, J. and Bigiel, F. and Chevance, M. and Faesi, C. M. and Gallagher, M. and García-Burillo, S. and Glover, S. C. O. and Hygate, A. P. S. and Jiménez-Donaire, M. J. and Kruijssen, J. M. D. and Momjian, E. and Rosolowsky, E. and Utomo, D. (2019) Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100 pc scales in M 51. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 625 . Art. No. A19. ISSN 0004-6361. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201834915. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190607-084722304

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Abstract

It remains unclear what sets the efficiency with which molecular gas transforms into stars. Here we present a new VLA map of the spiral galaxy M 51 in 33 GHz radio continuum, an extinction-free tracer of star formation, at 3″ scales (∼100 pc). We combined this map with interferometric PdBI/NOEMA observations of CO(1–0) and HCN(1–0) at matched resolution for three regions in M 51 (central molecular ring, northern and southern spiral arm segments). While our measurements roughly fall on the well-known correlation between total infrared and HCN luminosity, bridging the gap between Galactic and extragalactic observations, we find systematic offsets from that relation for different dynamical environments probed in M 51; for example, the southern arm segment is more quiescent due to low star formation efficiency (SFE) of the dense gas, despite its high dense gas fraction. Combining our results with measurements from the literature at 100 pc scales, we find that the SFE of the dense gas and the dense gas fraction anti-correlate and correlate, respectively, with the local stellar mass surface density. This is consistent with previous kpc-scale studies. In addition, we find a significant anti-correlation between the SFE and velocity dispersion of the dense gas. Finally, we confirm that a correlation also holds between star formation rate surface density and the dense gas fraction, but it is not stronger than the correlation with dense gas surface density. Our results are hard to reconcile with models relying on a universal gas density threshold for star formation and suggest that turbulence and galactic dynamics play a major role in setting how efficiently dense gas converts into stars.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834915DOIArticle
https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.10437arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Querejeta, M.0000-0002-0472-1011
Schinnerer, E.0000-0002-3933-7677
Murphy, E.0000-0001-7089-7325
Meidt, S.0000-0002-6118-4048
Leroy, A. K.0000-0002-2545-1700
Momjian, E.0000-0003-3168-5922
Rosolowsky, E.0000-0002-5204-2259
Additional Information:© 2019 ESO. Article published by EDP Sciences. Received 18 December 2018; Accepted 26 February 2019; Published online 01 May 2019. Based on observations carried out with the IRAM Interferometer NOEMA. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany), and IGN (Spain). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work was carried out as part of the PHANGS collaboration. We would like to thank Kazimierz Sliwa, Gaëlle Dumas, Melanie Krips, and Jürgen Ott for helpful assistance regarding data reduction. We also thank Neven Tomičić for providing SFR measurements for the Andromeda galaxy, and Sean T. Linden, Eve C. Ostriker, and Sébastien Viaene for useful feedback. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous referee for constructive comments. MQ and SEM acknowledge (partial) funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) via grant SCHI 536/7-2 as part of the priority programme SPP 1573 “ISM-SPP: Physics of the Interstellar Medium”. ES and CMF acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 694343). The work of AKL and DU is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 1615105, 1615109, and 1653300. FB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 726384). APSH is a fellow of the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Cosmic Physics at the University of Heidelberg (IMPRS-HD). The work of MJG and DU is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 1615105, 1615109, and 1653300. JMDK and MC gratefully acknowledge funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the form of an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number KR4801/1-1). JMDK gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme via the ERC Starting Grant MUSTANG (grant agreement number 714907). SGB acknowledges support from the Spanish MINECO grant AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P. JP acknowledges support from the Programme National “Physique et Chimie du Milieu Interstellaire” (PCMI) of CNRS/INSU with INC/INP co-funded by CEA and CNES. ER acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference number RGPIN-2017-03987. SCOG acknowledges support from the DFG via SFB 881 “The Milky Way System” (sub-projects B1, B2 and B8).
Group:Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU)UNSPECIFIED
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)UNSPECIFIED
Max Planck SocietyUNSPECIFIED
Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)UNSPECIFIED
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)SCHI 536/7-2
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)SPP 1573
European Research Council (ERC)694343
NSFAST-1615105
NSFAST-1615109
NSFAST-1653300
European Research Council (ERC)726384
University of HeidelbergUNSPECIFIED
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)KR4801/1-1
European Research Council (ERC)714907
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P
Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)UNSPECIFIED
Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES)UNSPECIFIED
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)RGPIN-2017-03987
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)SFB 881
Subject Keywords:galaxies: individual: NGC5194 – galaxies: ISM – galaxies: star formation – galaxies: structure
DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/201834915
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20190607-084722304
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190607-084722304
Official Citation:Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100 pc scales in M 51. M. Querejeta, E. Schinnerer, A. Schruba, E. Murphy, S. Meidt, A. Usero, A. K. Leroy, J. Pety, F. Bigiel, M. Chevance, C. M. Faesi, M. Gallagher, S. García-Burillo, S. C. O. Glover, A. P. S. Hygate, M. J. Jiménez-Donaire, J. M. D. Kruijssen, E. Momjian, E. Rosolowsky and D. Utomo. A&A, 625 (2019) A19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201834915
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:96199
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Tony Diaz
Deposited On:07 Jun 2019 16:42
Last Modified:16 Nov 2021 17:18

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