Regulation of star formation by large scale gravito-turbulence

Abstract

A simple model for star formation based on supernova (SN) feedback and gravitational heating via the collapse of perturbations in gravitationally unstable disks reproduces the Schmidt-Kennicutt relation between the star formation rate (SFR) per unit area, ${\Sigma }_{SFR}$, and the gas surface density, ${\Sigma }_g$, remarkably well. The gas velocity dispersion, ${\sigma }_g$, is derived self-consistently in conjunction with ${\Sigma }_{SFR}$ and is found to match the observations. Gravitational instability triggers {"gravito-turbulence"} at the scale of the least stable perturbation mode, boosting ${\sigma }_g$ at ${\Sigma }_g>{\Sigma }_g^{\text{thr}}=50{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }{\mathrm{pc}}^{-2}$, and contributing to the pressure needed to carry the disk weight vertically. ${\Sigma }_{SFR}$ is reduced to the observed level at ${\Sigma }_g>{\Sigma }_g^{\text{thr}}$, whereas at lower surface densities, SN feedback is the prevailing energy source. Our proposed star formation recipes require efficiencies of order 1\%, and the Toomre parameter, $Q$, for the joint gaseous and stellar disk is predicted to be close to the critical value for marginal stability for ${\Sigma }_g<{\Sigma }_g^{\text{thr}}$, spreading to lower values and larger gas velocity dispersion at higher ${\Sigma }_g$.

updated bibliography

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• The SATIN project I: Turbulent multi-phase ISM in Milky Way simulations with SNe feedback from stellar clusters
• Halo heating from fluctuating gas in a model dwarf
• The signature of large scale turbulence driving on the structure of the interstellar medium