The extended law of star formation: the combined role of gas and stars

Abstract

We present a model for the origin of the extended law of star formation in which the surface density of star formation (${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}$) depends not only on the local surface density of the gas (${\Sigma }_g$), but also on the stellar surface density (${\Sigma }_{\ast }$), the velocity dispersion of the stars, and on the scaling laws of turbulence in the gas. We compare our model with the spiral, face-on galaxy NGC 628 and show that the dependence of the star formation rate on the entire set of physical quantities for both gas and stars can help explain both the observed general trends in the ${\Sigma }_g-{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ and ${\Sigma }_{\ast }-{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ relations, but also, and equally important, the scatter in these relations at any value of ${\Sigma }_g$ and ${\Sigma }_{\ast }$. Our results point out to the crucial role played by existing stars along with the gaseous component in setting the conditions for large scale gravitational instabilities and star formation in galactic disks.

aceepted to MNRAS

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• Slow Star Formation in Dense Gas: Evidence and Implications
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Cited by in corpus (12)

• What FIREs Up Star Formation: the Emergence of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Law from Feedback
• Star formation scaling relations at ~100 pc from PHANGS: Impact of completeness and spatial scale
• Dust properties and star formation of approximately a thousand local galaxies
• Variations in the ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}-{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}-{\Sigma }_{\star }$ plane across galactic environments in PHANGS galaxies
• SDSS-IV MANGA: A Star Formation -- Baryonic Mass Relation at Kpc Scales
• The structure and characteristic scales of molecular clouds
• Gravitational instability and star formation in NGC 628
• The structure and characteristic scales of the HI gas in galactic disks
• The EDGE-CALIFA survey: The resolved star formation efficiency and local physical conditions
• The THESAN-ZOOM project: Star-formation efficiencies in high-redshift galaxies
• Gas, Dust, Stars, Star Formation and their Evolution in M33 at Giant Molecular Cloud Scales
• Assessing the accuracy of the star formation rate measurements by direct star count in molecular clouds