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The Global Schmidt Law in Star‐forming Galaxies

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Kennicutt, Jr., Robert C.·1998·The Astrophysical Journal

Abstract

Measurements of Hα, H I, and CO distributions in 61 normal spiral galaxies are combined with published far-infrared and CO observations of 36 infrared-selected starburst galaxies, in order to study the form of the global star formation law over the full range of gas densities and star formation rates (SFRs) observed in galaxies. The disk-averaged SFRs and gas densities for the combined sample are well represented by a Schmidt law with index N = 1.4 ± 0.15. The Schmidt law provides a surprisingly tight parametrization of the global star formation law, extending over several orders of magnitude in SFR and gas density. An alternative formulation of the star formation law, in which the SFR is presumed to scale with the ratio of the gas density to the average orbital timescale, also fits the data very well. Both descriptions provide potentially useful "recipes" for modeling the SFR in numerical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution.

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Metadata

Authors
Kennicutt, Jr.
Venue
The Astrophysical Journal
Published
1998-05-10
Volume
498
Issue
2
Pages
541-552
ISSN
  • 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
  • 1538-4357
OpenAlex
W2116466430
Cited by
5,202
References
1
FWCI
46.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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Kennicutt, Jr. (1998). The Global Schmidt Law in Star‐forming Galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1086/305588

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