paper

The Star Formation Law in Molecule-Poor Galaxies

arXiv:1309.5100 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stt1780

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the processes that regulate the rate of star formation in regions of galaxies where the neutral interstellar medium is predominantly composed of non-star-forming HI. In such regions, found today predominantly in low-metallicity dwarf galaxies and in the outer parts of large spirals, the star formation rate per unit area and per unit mass is much smaller than in more molecule-rich regions. While in molecule-rich regions the ultraviolet radiation field produced by efficient star formation forces the density of the cold neutral medium to a value set by two-phase equilibrium, I show that the low rates of star formation found in molecule-poor regions preclude this condition. Instead, the density of the cold neutral gas is set by the requirements of hydrostatic balance. Using this result, I extend the Krumholz, McKee, & Tumlinson model for star formation and the atomic to molecular transition to the molecule-poor regime. This "KMT+" model matches a wide range of observations of the star formation rate and the balance between the atomic and molecular phases in dwarfs and in the outer parts of spirals, and is well-suited to implementation as a subgrid recipe for star formation in cosmological simulations and semi-analytic models. I discuss the implications of this model for star formation over cosmological times.

18 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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