Spatial Decorrelation of Young Stars and Dense Gas as a Probe of the Star Formation-Feedback Cycle in Galaxies

Abstract

The spatial decorrelation of dense molecular gas and young stars observed on $\lesssim 1$ kiloparsec scales in nearby galaxies indicates rapid dispersal of star-forming regions by stellar feedback. We explore the sensitivity of this decorrelation to different processes controlling the structure of the interstellar medium, the abundance of molecular gas, star formation, and feedback in a suite of simulations of an isolated dwarf galaxy with structural properties similar to NGC300 that self-consistently model radiative transfer and molecular chemistry. Our fiducial simulation reproduces the magnitude of decorrelation and its scale dependence measured in NGC300, and we show that this agreement is due to different aspects of feedback, including H${}_2$ dissociation, gas heating by the locally variable UV field, early mechanical feedback, and supernovae. In particular, early radiative and mechanical feedback affects the correlation on $\lesssim 100$ pc scales, while supernovae play a significant role on $\gtrsim 100$ pc scales. The correlation is also sensitive to the choice of the local star formation efficiency per freefall time, ${\epsilon }_{\mathrm{ff}}$, which provides a strong observational constraint on ${\epsilon }_{\mathrm{ff}}$ when the global star formation rate is independent of its value. Finally, we explicitly show that the degree of correlation between the peaks of molecular gas and star formation density is directly related to the distribution of the lifetimes of star-forming regions.

arXiv comment21 pages + appendix, 17 figures; published in ApJ; the animated version of Figure 1 is available in the online version of the article and at https://vadimsemenov.com/research/ngc300

References in corpus (105)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Embedded Clusters in Molecular Clouds
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
• Galaxies on FIRE (Feedback In Realistic Environments): Stellar Feedback Explains Cosmologically Inefficient Star Formation
• A Multi-Code Analysis Toolkit for Astrophysical Simulation Data
• Radiative transfer in a clumpy universe: IV. New synthesis models of the cosmic UV/X-ray background
• FIRE-2 Simulations: Physics versus Numerics in Galaxy Formation
• At the heart of the matter: the origin of bulgeless dwarf galaxies and Dark Matter cores
• Theoretical Challenges in Galaxy Formation
• Adaptive Refinement Tree - a new high-resolution N-body code for cosmological simulations
• Slow Star Formation in Dense Gas: Evidence and Implications
• Towards a complete accounting of energy and momentum from stellar feedback in galaxy formation simulations
• Self-Regulated Star Formation in Galaxies via Momentum Input from Massive Stars
• Making Galaxies in a Cosmological Context: The Need for Early Stellar Feedback
• Effects of Baryons and Dissipation on the Matter Power Spectrum
• Molecular Hydrogen and Global Star Formation Relations in Galaxies
• The Structure of the Interstellar Medium of Star Forming Galaxies
• The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• The Anatomy of Star Formation in NGC 300
• Supernova Feedback in an Inhomogeneous Interstellar Medium
• Extragalactic chemical abundances: do HII regions and young stars tell the same story? The case of the spiral galaxy NGC 300
• Multi--dimensional Cosmological Radiative Transfer with a Variable Eddington Tensor Formalism
• Constrained Simulations of the Real Universe: II. Observational Signatures of Intergalactic Gas in the Local Supercluster Region
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• Inefficient star formation through turbulence, magnetic fields and feedback
• Cloud-Scale Molecular Gas Properties in 15 Nearby Galaxies
• Environmental Dependence of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Relation in Galaxies
• An uncertainty principle for star formation. I. Why galactic star formation relations break down below a certain spatial scale
• On the interplay between star formation and feedback in galaxy formation simulations
• The Scale Dependence of the Molecular Gas Depletion Time in M33
• The Meaning and Consequences of Star Formation Criteria in Galaxy Models with Resolved Stellar Feedback
• Gas Kinematics on GMC scales in M51 with PAWS: cloud stabilization through dynamical pressure
• Short-lived star-forming giant clumps in cosmological simulations of z~2 disks
• Why are most molecular clouds not gravitationally bound?
• Cosmic Reionization On Computers I. Design and Calibration of Simulations
• Implementing Molecular Hydrogen in Hydrodynamic Simulations of Galaxy Formation
• A Simple Law of Star Formation
• MaGICC Disks: Matching Observed Galaxy Relationships Over a Wide Stellar Mass Range
• The Fate of the First Galaxies. I. Self-Consistent Cosmological Simulations with Radiative Transfer
• Star formation and molecular hydrogen in dwarf galaxies: a non-equilibrium view
• Observational Evidence of Dynamic Star Formation Rate in Milky Way Giant Molecular Clouds
• A Wide-field High Resolution HI Mosaic of Messier 31: I. Opaque Atomic Gas and Star Formation Rate Density
• Molecular Gas Properties on Cloud Scales Across the Local Star-forming Galaxy Population
• Cloud Scale ISM Structure and Star Formation in M51
• The Araucaria Project. Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables in the Sculptor Galaxy NGC 300
• Simulating the interstellar medium and stellar feedback on a moving mesh: Implementation and isolated galaxies
• Cosmological evolution of atomic gas and implications for 21 cm HI absorption
• Enhanced Momentum Feedback from Clustered Supernovae
• The impact of stellar feedback on the structure, size and morphology of galaxies in Milky Way size dark matter haloes
• What FIREs Up Star Formation: the Emergence of the Kennicutt-Schmidt Law from Feedback
• The physical origin of long gas depletion times in galaxies
• Star Formation Efficiency and Dispersal of Giant Molecular Clouds with UV Radiation Feedback: Dependence on Gravitational Boundedness and Magnetic Fields
• Quantitative Evidence for an Intrinsic Age Spread in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• The time-scales probed by star formation rate indicators for realistic, bursty star formation histories from the FIRE simulations
• Non-universal star formation efficiency in turbulent ISM
• A Portrait of Cold Gas in Galaxies at 60pc Resolution and a Simple Method to Test Hypotheses That Link Small-Scale ISM Structure to Galaxy-Scale Processes
• A 50 pc scale view of star formation efficiency across NGC 628
• On the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation of low-metallicity high-redshift galaxies
• From molecules to Young Stellar Clusters: the star formation cycle across the M33 disk
• An uncertainty principle for star formation - II. A new method for characterising the cloud-scale physics of star formation and feedback across cosmic history
• How galaxies form stars: the connection between local and global star formation in galaxy simulations
• Efficient early stellar feedback can suppress galactic outflows by reducing supernova clustering
• On the duration of the embedded phase of star formation
• Physical Properties of Molecular Clouds at 2 parsec Resolution in the Low-Metallicity Dwarf Galaxy NGC 6822 and the Milky Way
• Chaos and Variance in Galaxy Formation
• Gas and dark matter in the Sculptor group: NGC 300
• Cooling and Heating Functions of Photoionized Gas
• Line Overlap and Self-Shielding of Molecular Hydrogen in Galaxies
• The momentum budget of clustered supernova feedback in a 3D, magnetised medium
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies I. Assessment of Multi-scale Variations
• The ALMA view of GMCs in NGC 300: Physical Properties and Scaling Relations at 10 pc Resolution
• The impact of stellar feedback on the density and velocity structure of the interstellar medium
• How Universal is the SFR - H2 Relation?
• Dense gas is not enough: environmental variations in the star formation efficiency of dense molecular gas at 100pc scales in M51
• Dancing in the Dark: Uncertainty in ultra-faint dwarf galaxy predictions from cosmological simulations
• Live Fast, Die Young: GMC lifetimes in the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies
• The X-factor in Galaxies: II. The molecular hydrogen -- star formation relation
• Simulating the interstellar medium of galaxies with radiative transfer, non-equilibrium thermochemistry, and dust
• Chemistry and radiative shielding in star forming galactic disks
• The role of galactic dynamics in shaping the physical properties of giant molecular clouds in Milky Way-like galaxies
• Cosmic-Ray Diffusion Suppression in Star-forming Regions Inhibits Clump Formation in Gas-rich Galaxies
• Stellar Feedback and Resolved Stellar IFU Spectroscopy in the nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 300
• A fundamental test for stellar feedback recipes in galaxy simulations
• How Biased Are Halo Properties in Cosmological Simulations?
• Effect of Cosmic Rays on the Evolution and Momentum Deposition of Supernova Remnants
• Galaxy Formation with local photoionisation feedback I. Methods
• Cosmological Fluid Mechanics with Adaptively Refined Large Eddy Simulations
• The effects of subgrid models on the properties of giant molecular clouds in galaxy formation simulations
• On the Observed Diversity of Star Formation Efficiencies in Giant Molecular Clouds
• An uncertainty principle for star formation -- III. The characteristic emission time-scales of star formation rate tracers
• On the time variability of the star formation efficiency
• A model for the onset of self-gravitation and star formation in molecular gas governed by galactic forces: II. the bottleneck to collapse set by cloud-environment decoupling
• Molecular Cloud-scale Star Formation in NGC 300
• Discovery of a 21 Myr old stellar population in the Orion complex
• Giant Molecular Cloud Formation in Disk Galaxies: Characterizing Simulated versus Observed Cloud Catalogues
• An observational test for star formation prescriptions in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• The Araucaria Project: The Distance to NGC 300 from the Red Giant Branch Tip using HST/ACS imaging
• A scaling relation for the molecular cloud lifetime in Milky Way-like galaxies
• What Sets the Slope of the Molecular Kennicutt-Schmidt Relation?
• Cosmic Reionization On Computers: Numerical and Physical Convergence
• Resolving Giant Molecular Clouds in NGC 300: A First Look with the Submillimeter Array
• GalactICS with Gas
• The Anatomy of a Star-Forming Galaxy II: the role of FUV heating via dust
• Physical Properties and Scaling Relations of Molecular Clouds: the Impact of Star Formation

Cited by in corpus (23)

• The PHANGS-MUSE survey -- Probing the chemo-dynamical evolution of disc galaxies
• From dawn till disk: Milky Way's turbulent youth revealed by the APOGEE+Gaia data
• Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main sequence galaxies
• The impact of pre-supernova feedback and its dependence on environment
• A systematic study of the escape of LyC and Ly$\alpha$ photons from star-forming, magnetized turbulent clouds
• The challenge of simulating the star cluster population of dwarf galaxies with resolved interstellar medium
• The Effects of Magnetic Fields and Outflow Feedback on the Shape and Evolution of the Density PDF in Turbulent Star-Forming Clouds
• Empirically-motivated early feedback: momentum input by stellar feedback in galaxy simulations inferred through observations
• Stochastic Modelling of Star Formation Histories III. Constraints from Physically-Motivated Gaussian Processes
• Binary progenitor systems for Type Ic supernovae
• Towards a multi-tracer timeline of star formation in the LMC -- II. The formation and destruction of molecular clouds
• Clusters, Clouds, and Correlations: Relating Young Clusters to Giant Molecular Clouds in M33 and M31
• Entropy-Conserving Scheme for Modeling Nonthermal Energies in Fluid Dynamics Simulations
• Simulations of pre-supernova feedback in spherical clouds
• Playing with FIRE: A Galactic Feedback-Halting Experiment Challenges Star Formation Rate Theories
• Modeling molecular hydrogen in low metallicity galaxies
• On the limitations of H alpha luminosity as a star formation tracer in spatially resolved observations
• Escaping the maze: a statistical sub-grid model for cloud-scale density structures in the interstellar medium
• Duration and properties of the embedded phase of star formation in 37 nearby galaxies from PHANGS-JWST
• Capturing Turbulence with Numerical Dissipation: a Simple Dynamical Model for Unresolved Turbulence in Hydrodynamic Simulations
• RIGEL: Feedback-regulated cloud-scale star formation efficiency in a simulated dwarf galaxy merger
• The Star Formation Factory revisited I. The impact of metallicity on collapsing star-forming clouds
• The LEGA-C galaxy survey: multiple quenching channels for quiescent galaxies at $z\sim 1$