Do spiral arms enhance star formation efficiency?

Miguel Querejeta; Adam K. Leroy; Sharon E. Meidt; Eva Schinnerer; Francesco Belfiore; Eric Emsellem; Ralf S. Klessen; Jiayi Sun; Mattia Sormani; Ivana Bešlić; Yixian Cao; Mélanie Chevance; Dario Colombo; Daniel A. Dale; Santiago García-Burillo; Simon C.O. Glover; Kathryn Grasha; Brent Groves; Eric W. Koch; Lukas Neumann; Hsi An Pan; Ismael Pessa; Jérôme Pety; Francesca Pinna; Lise Ramambason; Alessandro Razza; Andrea Romanelli; Erik Rosolowsky; Marina Ruiz-García; Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez; Rowan Smith; Sophia Stuber; Leonardo Ubeda; Antonio Usero; Thomas G. Williams

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202449733

Hsi An Pan, Ismael Pessa, Jérôme Pety, Francesca Pinna, Lise Ramambason, Alessandro Razza, Andrea Romanelli, Erik Rosolowsky, Marina Ruiz-García, Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez, Rowan Smith, Sophia Stuber, Leonardo Ubeda, Antonio Usero, Thomas G. Williams

Physics And Astronomy

Producción científica: Article › revisión exhaustiva

24 Citas (Scopus)

Resumen

Spiral arms, as those of our own Milky Way, are some of the most spectacular features in disc galaxies. It has been argued that star formation should proceed more efficiently in spiral arms as a result of gas compression. Yet, observational studies have so far yielded contradictory results. Here, we examine arm/interarm surface density contrasts at ∼100 pc resolution in 28 spiral galaxies from the PHANGS survey. We find that the arm/interarm contrast in stellar mass surface density (Σ_∗) is very modest, typically a few tens of percent. This is much smaller than the contrasts measured for molecular gas (Σ_mol) or star formation rate (Σ_SFR) surface density, which typically reach a factor of ∼2 - 3. However, Σ_mol and Σ_SFR contrasts show a significant correlation with the enhancement in Σ_∗, suggesting that the small stellar contrast largely dictates the stronger accumulation of gas and star formation. All these contrasts increase for grand-design spirals compared to multi-armed and flocculent systems (and for galaxies with high stellar mass). The median star formation efficiency (SFE) of the molecular gas is 16% higher in spiral arms than in interarm regions, with a large scatter, and the contrast increases significantly (median SFE contrast 2.34) for regions of particularly enhanced stellar contrast (Σ_∗ contrast > 1.97). The molecular-to-atomic gas ratio (Σ_mol/Σ_atom) is higher in spiral arms, pointing to a transformation of atomic to molecular gas. As a consequence, the total gas contrast (Σ_mol + Σ_atom) slightly drops compared to Σ_mol (median 4% lower, working at ∼kpc resolution), while the SFE contrast increases when we include atomic gas (median 8% higher than for Σ_mol). The contrasts show important fluctuations with galactocentric radius. We confirm that our results are robust against a number of effects, such as spiral mask width, tracers, resolution, and binning. In conclusion, the boost in the SFE of molecular gas in spiral arms is generally modest or absent, except for locations with exceptionally large stellar contrasts.

Idioma original	English
Número de artículo	A293
Publicación	Astronomy and Astrophysics
Volumen	687
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449733
Estado	Published - jul 1 2024

Nota bibliográfica

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors.

Financiación

This work was carried out as part of the PHANGS collaboration. We would like to thank the anonymous referee for comments that helped us improve the manuscript. This work is based on observations and archival data obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2012.1.00650.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.00803.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.01161.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00121.S, ADS/ JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00782.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00925.S, ADS/ JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00956.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00386.S, ADS/ JAO.ALMA#2017.1.00886.L, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2018.1.01651.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. MQ, SGB, MRG, and AU acknowledge support from the Spanish grant PID2022-138560NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU. JS acknowledges support by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51544 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract NAS 5-26555. MCS acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the ERC Starting Grant 'GalFlow' (grant 101116226) and from the Royal Society (URF\R1\221118). MC gratefully acknowledges funding from the DFG through an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number CH2137/1-1). COOL Research DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization supporting research in astrophysics aimed at uncovering our cosmic origins. LN acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - 516405419. I.P. acknowledges funding by the European Research Council through ERC-AdG SPECMAP-CGM, GA 101020943. This work was carried out as part of the PHANGS collaboration. We would like to thank the anonymous referee for comments that helped us improve the manuscript. This work is based on observations and archival data obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2012.1.00650.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.00803.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.01161.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00121.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00782.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00925.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00956.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00386.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2017.1.00886.L, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2018.1.01651.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. MQ, SGB, MRG, and AU acknowledge support from the Spanish grant PID2022-138560NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU. JS acknowledges support by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51544 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under contract NAS 5-26555. MCS acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the ERC Starting Grant ‘GalFlow’ (grant 101116226) and from the Royal Society (URF\R1\221118). MC gratefully acknowledges funding from the DFG through an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number CH2137/1-1). COOL Research DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization supporting research in astrophysics aimed at uncovering our cosmic origins. LN acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 516405419. I.P. acknowledges funding by the European Research Council through ERC-AdG SPECMAP-CGM, GA 101020943.

Financiadores	Número del financiador
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science Program
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
ASIAA (Taiwan)
Oak Ridge Associated Universities
National Institutes of Natural Sciences, National Institute for Physiological Sciences
Australian Diabetes Society
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
National Research Council Canada (NRCC)
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)	PID2022-138560NB-I00
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft	GA 101020943, 516405419
California Institute of Technology	2012.1.00650
Royal Society of Medicine	URF\R1\221118, CH2137/1-1
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	HST-HF2-51544
Space Telescope Science Institute	NAS 5-26555
H2020 European Research Council	101116226
JAO	2013.1.00803, 2015.1.00782, 2018.1.01651, 2017.1.00886, 2015.1.00121, 2016.1.00386, 2015.1.00925, 2015.1.00956

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.1051/0004-6361/202449733

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Querejeta, M., Leroy, A. K., Meidt, S. E., Schinnerer, E., Belfiore, F., Emsellem, E., Klessen, R. S., Sun, J., Sormani, M., Bešlić, I., Cao, Y., Chevance, M., Colombo, D., Dale, D. A., García-Burillo, S., Glover, S. C. O., Grasha, K., Groves, B., Koch, E. W., ... Williams, T. G. (2024). Do spiral arms enhance star formation efficiency? Astronomy and Astrophysics, 687, Artículo A293. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449733

@article{e89d02696beb4d72910d5ec8368bec2d,

title = "Do spiral arms enhance star formation efficiency?",

abstract = "Spiral arms, as those of our own Milky Way, are some of the most spectacular features in disc galaxies. It has been argued that star formation should proceed more efficiently in spiral arms as a result of gas compression. Yet, observational studies have so far yielded contradictory results. Here, we examine arm/interarm surface density contrasts at ∼100 pc resolution in 28 spiral galaxies from the PHANGS survey. We find that the arm/interarm contrast in stellar mass surface density (Σ∗) is very modest, typically a few tens of percent. This is much smaller than the contrasts measured for molecular gas (Σmol) or star formation rate (ΣSFR) surface density, which typically reach a factor of ∼2 - 3. However, Σmol and ΣSFR contrasts show a significant correlation with the enhancement in Σ∗, suggesting that the small stellar contrast largely dictates the stronger accumulation of gas and star formation. All these contrasts increase for grand-design spirals compared to multi-armed and flocculent systems (and for galaxies with high stellar mass). The median star formation efficiency (SFE) of the molecular gas is 16\% higher in spiral arms than in interarm regions, with a large scatter, and the contrast increases significantly (median SFE contrast 2.34) for regions of particularly enhanced stellar contrast (Σ∗ contrast > 1.97). The molecular-to-atomic gas ratio (Σmol/Σatom) is higher in spiral arms, pointing to a transformation of atomic to molecular gas. As a consequence, the total gas contrast (Σmol + Σatom) slightly drops compared to Σmol (median 4\% lower, working at ∼kpc resolution), while the SFE contrast increases when we include atomic gas (median 8\% higher than for Σmol). The contrasts show important fluctuations with galactocentric radius. We confirm that our results are robust against a number of effects, such as spiral mask width, tracers, resolution, and binning. In conclusion, the boost in the SFE of molecular gas in spiral arms is generally modest or absent, except for locations with exceptionally large stellar contrasts.",

keywords = "Galaxies: spiral, Galaxies: star formation, Galaxies: structure",

author = "Miguel Querejeta and Leroy, \{Adam K.\} and Meidt, \{Sharon E.\} and Eva Schinnerer and Francesco Belfiore and Eric Emsellem and Klessen, \{Ralf S.\} and Jiayi Sun and Mattia Sormani and Ivana Be{\v s}li{\'c} and Yixian Cao and M{\'e}lanie Chevance and Dario Colombo and Dale, \{Daniel A.\} and Santiago Garc{\'i}a-Burillo and Glover, \{Simon C.O.\} and Kathryn Grasha and Brent Groves and Koch, \{Eric W.\} and Lukas Neumann and Pan, \{Hsi An\} and Ismael Pessa and J{\'e}r{\^o}me Pety and Francesca Pinna and Lise Ramambason and Alessandro Razza and Andrea Romanelli and Erik Rosolowsky and Marina Ruiz-Garc{\'i}a and Patricia S{\'a}nchez-Bl{\'a}zquez and Rowan Smith and Sophia Stuber and Leonardo Ubeda and Antonio Usero and Williams, \{Thomas G.\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024 The Authors.",

year = "2024",

month = jul,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1051/0004-6361/202449733",

language = "English",

volume = "687",

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Querejeta, M, Leroy, AK, Meidt, SE, Schinnerer, E, Belfiore, F, Emsellem, E, Klessen, RS, Sun, J, Sormani, M, Bešlić, I, Cao, Y, Chevance, M, Colombo, D, Dale, DA, García-Burillo, S, Glover, SCO, Grasha, K, Groves, B, Koch, EW, Neumann, L, Pan, HA, Pessa, I, Pety, J, Pinna, F, Ramambason, L, Razza, A, Romanelli, A, Rosolowsky, E, Ruiz-García, M, Sánchez-Blázquez, P, Smith, R, Stuber, S, Ubeda, L, Usero, A & Williams, TG 2024, 'Do spiral arms enhance star formation efficiency?', Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 687, A293. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449733