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The Role of Pressure in GMC Formation II: The H2‐Pressure Relation
Open accessAbstract
We show that the ratio of molecular to atomic gas in galaxies is determined by hydrostatic pressure and that the relation between the two is nearly linear. The pressure relation is shown to be good over 3 orders of magnitude for 14 galaxies, including dwarfs, H I-rich, and H 2 -rich galaxies, as well as the Milky Way. The sample spans a factor of 5 in mean metallicity. The rms scatter of individual points of the relation is only about a factor of 2 for all the galaxies, although some show much more scatter than others. Using these results, we propose a modified star formation prescription based on pressure determining the degree to which the ISM is molecular. The formulation is different in high- and low-pressure regimes, defined by whether the gas is primarily atomic or primarily molecular. This formulation can be implemented in simulations and provides a more appropriate treatment of the outer regions of spiral galaxies and molecule-poor systems, such as dwarf irregulars and damped Lyα systems.
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Citations
Cited by
Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
Kennicutt, R. C., & Evans, N. J. (2012) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081811-125610 · Cited by 2,902
“…speaking this scaling relation only applies to the phase balance of cold gas rather than the SFR, but it can be recast into a predicted star formation law if assumptions are made about the scaling between the SFR and the molecular gas components (e.g., Blitz & Rosolowsky 2006; Leroy et al. 2008).”
BackgroundTHE STAR FORMATION EFFICIENCY IN NEARBY GALAXIES: MEASURING WHERE GAS FORMS STARS EFFECTIVELY
Leroy, A. K., Walter, F., Brinks, E., Bigiel, F., de Blok, W. J. G., Madore, B., & Thornley, M. D. (2008) · The Astronomical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-6256/136/6/2782 · Cited by 1,919
THE SPITZER c2d LEGACY RESULTS: STAR-FORMATION RATES AND EFFICIENCIES; EVOLUTION AND LIFETIMES
Evans, N. J., Dunham, M. M., Jørgensen, J. K., Enoch, M. L., Merín, B., van Dishoeck, E. F., Alcalá, J. M., Myers, P. C., Stapelfeldt, K. R., Huard, T. L., et al. (2009) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/181/2/321 · Cited by 1,649
Walch, S., Girichidis, P., Naab, T., Gatto, A., Glover, S. C. O., Wünsch, R., Klessen, R. S., Clark, P. C., Peters, T., Derigs, D., et al. (2015) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv1975 · Cited by 366
“For comparison, we also show the midplane pressure as estimated by Blitz & Rosolowsky (2006): PBR06/kB = GASv √ 2 Gρ /kB = 9965 [K cm−3], (35) where v is the vertical velocity dispersion of the gas, which we set to v = 8 km s−1, following Koyama & Ostriker (2009, green dashed horizontal line).”
MethodResultKruijssen, J. M. D., Schruba, A., Hygate, A. P. S., Hu, C.-Y., Haydon, D. T., & Longmore, S. N. (2018) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/sty1128 · Cited by 103
Metadata
- Authors
- Blitz, L., & Rosolowsky, E.
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2006-10-20
- Volume
- 650
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 933-944
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2040322225
- Cited by
- 621
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 11.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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