Star formation scaling relations at ~100 pc from PHANGS: Impact of completeness and spatial scale

Abstract

Aims: The complexity of star formation at the physical scale of molecular clouds is not yet fully understood. We investigate the mechanisms regulating the formation of stars in different environments within nearby star-forming galaxies from the PHANGS sample. Methods: Integral field spectroscopic data and radio-interferometric observations of 18 galaxies were combined to explore the existence of the resolved star formation main sequence (rSFMS), resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation (rKS), and resolved molecular gas main sequence (rMGMS), and we derived their slope and scatter at spatial resolutions from 100 pc to 1 kpc (under various assumptions). Results: All three relations were recovered at the highest spatial resolution (100 pc). Furthermore, significant variations in these scaling relations were observed across different galactic environments. The exclusion of non-detections has a systematic impact on the inferred slope as a function of the spatial scale. Finally, the scatter of the ${\Sigma }_{mol.gas+\mathrm{stellar}}$ versus ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ correlation is smaller than that of the rSFMS, but higher than that found for the rKS. Conclusions: The rMGMS has the tightest relation at a spatial scale of 100 pc (scatter of 0.34 dex), followed by the rKS (0.41 dex) and then the rSFMS (0.51 dex). This is consistent with expectations from the timescales involved in the evolutionary cycle of molecular clouds. Surprisingly, the rKS shows the least variation across galaxies and environments, suggesting a tight link between molecular gas and subsequent star formation. The scatter of the three relations decreases at lower spatial resolutions, with the rKS being the tightest (0.27 dex) at a spatial scale of 1 kpc. Variation in the slope of the rSFMS among galaxies is partially due to different detection fractions of ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ with respect to ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{stellar}}$.

arXiv comment27 pages, 29 figures, Accepted in A&A

References in corpus (104)

• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• The physical properties of star forming galaxies in the low redshift universe
• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
• Parametric Recovery of Line-of-Sight Velocity Distributions from Absorption-Line Spectra of Galaxies via Penalized Likelihood
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• The CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor
• The Star Formation Efficiency in Nearby Galaxies: Measuring Where Gas Forms Stars Effectively
• The Star Formation Law in Nearby Galaxies on Sub-Kpc Scales
• The Spitzer c2d Legacy Results: Star Formation Rates and Efficiencies; Evolution and Lifetimes
• UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
• Multiwavelength study of massive galaxies at z~2. I. Star formation and galaxy growth
• A Highly Consistent Framework for the Evolution of the Star-Forming "Main Sequence" from z~0-6
• A large stellar evolution database for population synthesis studies. I. Scaled solar models and isochrones
• THINGS: The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey
• Improving the full spectrum fitting method: accurate convolution with Gauss-Hermite functions
• Adaptive spatial binning of integral-field spectroscopic data using Voronoi tessellations
• High molecular gas fractions in normal massive star forming galaxies in the young Universe
• A Study of the Gas-Star Formation Relation over Cosmic Time
• The Star-formation Mass Sequence out to z=2.5
• Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Nearby Disk Galaxies
• Star Clusters Across Cosmic Time
• HERACLES: The HERA CO-Line Extragalactic Survey
• A Molecular Star Formation Law in the Atomic Gas Dominated Regime in Nearby Galaxies
• The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S^4G)
• The Star Formation Rate and Gas Surface Density Relation in the Milky Way: Implications for Extragalactic Studies
• Star formation in AEGIS field galaxies since z=1.1 . Staged galaxy formation, and a model of mass-dependent gas exhaustion
• A Constant Molecular Gas Depletion Time in Nearby Disk Galaxies
• Regulation of Star Formation Rates in Multiphase Galactic Disks: a Thermal/Dynamical Equilibrium Model
• The warm ionized medium in spiral galaxies
• Maximally Star-Forming Galactic Disks I. Starburst Regulation Via Feedback-Driven Turbulence
• MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage. I. Stellar populations synthesis models
• A z=0 Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis I: A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies
• The metallicity dependence of the CO {\rightarrow} H_2 conversion factor in z>1 star forming galaxies
• The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• Molecular and atomic gas along and across the main sequence of star-forming galaxies
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• Star Formation Relations in Nearby Molecular Clouds
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: The Impact of Diffuse Ionized Gas on Emission-line Ratios, Interpretation of Diagnostic Diagrams, and Gas Metallicity Measurements
• Spatially-Resolved Star Formation Main Sequence of Galaxies in the CALIFA Survey
• Metallicity gradients in local field star-forming galaxies: Insights on inflows, outflows, and the coevolution of gas, stars and metals
• A Correlation Between Surface Densities of Young Stellar Objects and Gas in Eight Nearby Molecular Clouds
• An uncertainty principle for star formation. I. Why galactic star formation relations break down below a certain spatial scale
• The Scale Dependence of the Molecular Gas Depletion Time in M33
• The Spatially Resolved Star Formation Law from Integral Field Spectroscopy: VIRUS-P Observations of NGC 5194
• Estimating the Star Formation Rate at 1 kpc Scales in Nearby Galaxies
• Distances to PHANGS Galaxies: New Tip of the Red Giant Branch Measurements and Adopted Distances
• Star formation is boosted (and quenched) from the inside out: radial star formation profiles from MaNGA
• Breakdown of Kennicutt-Schmidt Law at GMC Scales in M33
• Extended Schmidt Law: Role Of Existing Stars In Current Star Formation
• The Star Formation Law at Low Surface Density
• PHANGS CO kinematics: disk orientations and rotation curves at 150 pc resolution
• Molecular Gas Properties on Cloud Scales Across the Local Star-forming Galaxy Population
• Dynamical Equilibrium in the Molecular ISM in 28 Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
• Revisiting the Integrated Star Formation Law. Paper I: Non-Starbursting Galaxies
• Volumetric star formation laws of disc galaxies
• New Constraints on the ${}^{12}$CO(2-1)/(1-0) Line Ratio Across Nearby Disc Galaxies
• The physical origin of long gas depletion times in galaxies
• The molecular cloud lifecycle
• The main sequence of star forming galaxies I. The local relation and its bending
• HIIphot: Automated Photometry of HII Regions Applied to M51
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Spatially Resolving the Main Sequence of Star Formation
• The ALMaQUEST Survey: The molecular gas main sequence and the origin of the star forming main sequence
• Catalogue of the morphological features in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S${}^4$G)
• A 50 pc scale view of star formation efficiency across NGC 628
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Effects of Morphology in the global and local Star Formation Main Sequences
• An uncertainty principle for star formation - II. A new method for characterising the cloud-scale physics of star formation and feedback across cosmic history
• P-MaNGA: Emission Lines Properties - Gas Ionisation and Chemical Abundances from Prototype Observations
• SDSS-IV MANGA: Spatially Resolved Star Formation Main Sequence and LI(N)ER Sequence
• Physical Properties of Molecular Clouds at 2 parsec Resolution in the Low-Metallicity Dwarf Galaxy NGC 6822 and the Milky Way
• Herschel Exploitation of Local Galaxy Andromeda (HELGA) III: The Star Formation Law in M31
• The Chemical Evolution Carousel of Spiral Galaxies: Azimuthal Variations of Oxygen Abundance in NGC1365
• How Galactic Environment affects the Dynamical State of Molecular Clouds and their Star Formation Efficiency
• Star Formation Laws: the Effects of Gas Cloud Sampling
• Clustering properties of BzK-selected galaxies in GOODS-N: environmental quenching and triggering of star formation at z ~ 2
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies I. Assessment of Multi-scale Variations
• The ALMaQUEST Survey: III. Scatter in the resolved star forming main sequence is primarily due to variations in star formation efficiency
• The ALMaQUEST Survey: V. The non-universality of kpc-scale star formation relations and the factors that drive them
• Measuring the mixing scale of the ISM within nearby spiral galaxies
• Re-visiting the extended Schmidt law: the important role of existing stars in regulating star formation
• How Universal is the SFR - H2 Relation?
• The VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA): Spatially Resolved Gas-Phase Metallicity Distributions in Barred and Unbarred Spirals
• Star formation suppression and bar ages in nearby barred galaxies
• The EDGE-CALIFA survey: The local and global relations between ${\Sigma }_{\ast }$ , ${\Sigma }_{SFR}$ and ${\Sigma }_{mol}$ that regulate star-formation
• Understanding the Scatter in the Spatially-resolved Star Formation Main Sequence of Local Massive Spiral Galaxies
• ALMaQUEST -- IV. The ALMA-MaNGA QUEnching and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) Survey
• A panchromatic spatially resolved analysis of nearby galaxies -- II. The main sequence - gas relation at sub-kpc scale in grand-design spirals
• EDGE-CALIFA survey: Self-regulation of Star formation at kpc scales
• An uncertainty principle for star formation -- III. The characteristic emission time-scales of star formation rate tracers
• The volumetric star formation law for nearby galaxies -- Extension to dwarf galaxies and low-density regions
• The EDGE-CALIFA Survey: Exploring the Star Formation Law through Variable Selection
• The volumetric star formation law in the Milky Way
• The star-formation law at GMC scales in M33, the Triangulum Galaxy
• GASP. XX. From the loose spatially-resolved to the tight global SFR-Mass relation in local spiral galaxies
• SDSS-IV MANGA: A Star Formation -- Baryonic Mass Relation at Kpc Scales
• Unique Tracks Drive the Scatter of the Spatially-Resolved Star Formation Main Sequence
• Elevation or Suppression? The Resolved Star Formation Main Sequence of Galaxies with Two Different Assembly Modes
• An uncertainty principle for star formation - IV. On the nature and filtering of diffuse emission
• The organization of cloud-scale gas density structure: high resolution CO vs. 3.6 $\mu$m brightness contrasts in nearby galaxies
• The extended law of star formation: the combined role of gas and stars
• Variations in the slope of the resolved star-forming main sequence: a tool for constraining the mass of star-forming regions

Cited by in corpus (57)

• The PHANGS-MUSE survey -- Probing the chemo-dynamical evolution of disc galaxies
• Stellar structures, molecular gas, and star formation across the PHANGS sample of nearby galaxies
• Star Formation Laws and Efficiencies across 80 Nearby Galaxies
• The PHANGS-MUSE Nebula Catalogue
• The ALMaQUEST Survey IX: The nature of the resolved star forming main sequence
• PHANGS-JWST First Results: Mid-infrared emission traces both gas column density and heating at 100 pc scales
• The impact of pre-supernova feedback and its dependence on environment
• The Physical Drivers and Observational Tracers of CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor Variations in Nearby Barred Galaxy Centers
• A${}^3$COSMOS: A census on the molecular gas mass and extent of main-sequence galaxies across cosmic time
• Resolved stellar population properties of PHANGS-MUSE galaxies
• The ALMaQUEST Survey X: What powers merger induced star formation?
• Calibration of hybrid resolved star formation rate recipes based on PHANGS-MUSE H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ maps
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies II. Resolved Distributions of CO and H$\alpha$ Emission for 49 PHANGS Galaxies
• Variations in the ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{SFR}}-{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{mol}}-{\Sigma }_{\star }$ plane across galactic environments in PHANGS galaxies
• The Molecular-Gas Main Sequence and Schmidt-Kennicutt relation are fundamental, the Star-Forming Main Sequence is a (useful) byproduct
• The resolved scaling relations in DustPedia: Zooming in on the local Universe
• The Interaction between AGN and Starburst Activity in the Circumnuclear Region of NGC 7469 as Viewed with JWST
• ALMaQUEST -- VII: Star Formation Scaling Relations of Green Valley Galaxies
• A geostatistical analysis of multiscale metallicity variations in galaxies [I]: Introduction and comparison of high-resolution metallicity maps to an analytic metal transport model
• VERTICO III: The Kennicutt-Schmidt relation in Virgo cluster galaxies
• PHANGS: Constraining Star Formation Timescales Using the Spatial Correlations of Star Clusters and Giant Molecular Clouds
• VERTICO IV: Environmental Effects on the Gas Distribution and Star Formation Efficiency of Virgo Cluster Spirals
• Molecular gas and star formation within 12 strong galactic bars observed with IRAM-30m
• Duality in spatially resolved star-formation relations in local LIRGs
• Dissecting Nearby Galaxies with piXedfit: II. Spatially Resolved Scaling Relations Among Stars, Dust, and Gas
• VERTICO V: The environmentally driven evolution of the inner cold gas discs of Virgo cluster galaxies
• Star cluster formation and feedback in different environments of a Milky Way-like galaxy
• The impact of stellar bars on star-formation quenching: Insights from a spatially resolved analysis in the local Universe
• The Column Densities of Molecular Gas across Cosmic Time: Bridging Observations and Simulations
• Is the molecular KS relationship universal down to low metallicities?
• Unravelling the Dust Attenuation Scaling Relations and their Evolution
• Pre-supernova feedback mechanisms drive the destruction of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• The ALMaQUEST Survey XV: The Dependence of the Molecular-to-Atomic Gas Ratios on Resolved Optical Diagnostics
• CI and CO in Nearby Spiral Galaxies -- I. Line Ratio and Abundance Variations at ~ 200 pc Scales
• Exploring the Intrinsic Scatter of the Star-Forming Galaxy Main Sequence at redshift 0.5 to 3.0
• Star Cluster Formation and Evolution in M101: An Investigation with the Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey
• Expanding on the Fundamental Metallicity Relation in Dwarf Galaxies with MUSE
• NGDEEP: The Star Formation and Ionization Properties of Galaxies at $1.7<z<3.4$
• A sensitive, high-resolution, wide-field IRAM NOEMA CO(1-0) survey of the very nearby spiral galaxy IC 342
• The EDGE-CALIFA survey: Star formation relationships for galaxies at different stages of their evolution
• The ALPINE-CRISTAL-JWST survey: spatially resolved star formation relations at $z\sim 5$
• Fundamental relation in isolated galaxies, pairs, and triplets in the local universe
• A power spectral study of PHANGS galaxies with JWST MIRI: On the spatial scales of dust and PAHs
• The ALMaQUEST Survey XVII: Unveiling Multiple Quenching Pathways in Green Valley Galaxies via Molecular Gas and Quenching Timescale Analyses
• Implications of a spatially resolved main sequence for the size evolution of star forming galaxies
• Kennicutt-Schmidt relation of galaxies over 13 billion years in the COLIBRE hydrodynamical simulations
• The Arp 240 Galaxy Merger: A Detailed Look at the Molecular Kennicutt-Schmidt Star Formation Law on Sub-kpc Scales
• Investigating the role of turbulence in the interstellar medium in $z\sim 3$ dusty star-forming galaxies using kpc-resolution ALMA dust and gas maps
• CHILES X: Molecular and atomic gas at intermediate redshift
• Gravitational Torques from a Lopsided Young Stellar Component Sustain High Black Hole Accretion Rates in NGC 4593
• First statistical constraints on galactic scale outflows properties traced by their extended Mg II emission with MUSE
• Resolved molecular gas and star-formation in massive unquenched spirals : I. UGC 8179
• Infrared view of the multiphase ISM in NGC 253 II. Modelling the ionised and neutral atomic gas
• Measuring Scaling Relationships: Fitting Technique Matters
• Dust and inclination corrected star-formation and interstellar medium scaling relations in nearby galaxies
• PHANGS-MUSE: the HII region luminosity function of local star-forming galaxies
• Spatially Resolved Star Formation relations in local LIRGs along the complete merger sequence