THE STAR-FORMATION RELATION FOR REGIONS IN THE GALACTIC PLANE: THE EFFECT OF SPATIAL RESOLUTION
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin, 2515 Speedway, Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712-1205 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
We examined the relations between molecular gas surface density and star-formation rate surface density in an 11 deg{sup 2} region of the Galactic plane. Dust continua at 1.1 mm from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey and 22 μm emission from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky survey were used as tracers of molecular gas and the star-formation rate, respectively, across the Galactic longitude of 31.5 ≥ l ≥ 20.5 and Galactic latitude of 0.5 ≥ b ≥ –0.5. The relation was studied over a range of resolutions from 33'' to 20' by convolving images to larger scales. The pixel-by-pixel correlation between 1.1 mm and 22 μm increases rapidly at small scales and levels off at the scale of 5'-8'. We studied the star-formation relation based on a pixel-by-pixel analysis and on an analysis of the 1.1 mm and 22 μm peaks. The star-formation relation was found to be nearly linear with no significant changes in the form of the relation across all spatial scales, and it lies above the extragalactic relation from Kennicutt. The average gas-depletion time is ≈200 Myr and does not change significantly at different scales, but the scatter in the depletion time decreases as the scale increases.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364872
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 797, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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