The Radio-FIR correlation in the Milky Way

Abstract

We investigate the scale on which the correlation arises between the 843 MHz radio and the 60 micron far-infrared (FIR) emission from star forming regions in the Milky way. The correlation, which exists on the smallest scales investigated (down to ~4 pc), becomes noticeably tight on fields of size 30', corresponding to physical scales of ~20-50 pc. The FIR to radio flux ratio on this scale is consistent with the radio emission being dominated by thermal emission. We also investigate the location dependence of q_mean, a parameter measuring the mean FIR to radio flux ratio, of a sample of star forming regions. We show that q_mean displays a modest dependence on galactic latitude. If this is interpreted as a dependence on the intensity of star formation activity, the result is consistent with studies of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and other nearby galaxies that show elevated values for q in regions of enhanced star formation.

7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication by PASA

References in corpus (1)

• A multi-resolution analysis of the radio-FIR correlation in the Large Magellanic Cloud

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• The Three-mm Ultimate Mopra Milky Way Survey. I. Survey Overview, Initial Data Releases, and First Results
• Gamma-Rays and the Far-Infrared-Radio Continuum Correlation Reveal a Powerful Galactic Centre Wind
• Testing 24 micron and Infrared Luminosity as Star Formation Tracers for Galactic Star Forming Regions
• The Galactic Census of High- and Medium-mass Protostars. III ${}^{12}$CO Maps and Physical Properties of Dense Clump Envelopes and their Embedding GMCs
• Microwave and radio emission of dusty star-forming galaxies: Implication for the cosmic radio background