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The Resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt Law in Nearby Galaxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2013

R. Momose ,
J. Koda ,
R. C. Kennicutt Jr ,
F. Egusa ,
S. K. Okumura ,
D. Calzetti ,
G. Liu ,
J. Donovan Meyer ,
N. Z. Scoville  and
T. Sawada
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R. Momose
Affiliation:
ICRR, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwa-no-Ha, Kashiwa City, Chiba, 277-8582, Japan; email: momo.s.rieko@nao.ac.jp University of Tokyo NAOJ
J. Koda
Affiliation:
SUNY
R. C. Kennicutt Jr
Affiliation:
IoA; University of Cambridge
F. Egusa
Affiliation:
JAXA
S. K. Okumura
Affiliation:
NAOJ Japan Women's University
D. Calzetti
Affiliation:
UMASS
G. Liu
Affiliation:
UMASS JHU
J. Donovan Meyer
Affiliation:
SUNY
N. Z. Scoville
Affiliation:
Caltech
T. Sawada
Affiliation:
Joint ALMA Office
N. Kuno
Affiliation:
NRO, NAOJ
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Abstract

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The Kennicutt-Schmidt law (Schmidt 1959; Kennicutt 1998, hereafter K-S law) is a power law correlation between area averaged star formation rate (ΣSFR) and gas surface density (Σgas). Despite its importance, the physics that underlie this correlation has remained unclear. The power law index, N, is a prime discriminator of the mechanisms that regulate star formation and form the K-S law (e.g. Leroy et al. 2008; Tan 2010). We present a study of the resolved K-S law for 10 nearby disk galaxies using our new CO(1-0) data at 750 and 500 pc resolutions. The CO(1-0) line emission is established as a tracer of the molecular gas column density, and results in a super-linear correlation (N = 1.3 and 1.8). We discuss the cause of the discrepancy between previous studies, and the mechanism of star formation indicated from our new results.

Keywords

stars: formation — galaxies: spiral — ISM: molecules
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 8 , Symposium S292: Molecular Gas, Dust, and Star Formation in Galaxies , August 2012 , pp. 335
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2013

References

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Leroy, A. K.et al. 2008, AJ, 136, 2782Google Scholar
Schmidt, M., 1959, ApJ, 129, 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, J. C., 2010, ApJ, 710, L88CrossRefGoogle Scholar