Spinning Bar and a Star-formation Inefficient Repertoire: Turbulence in Hickson Compact Group NGC 7674

Date

2020

Authors

Salim, Diane
Alatalo, K
Federrath, Christoph
Groves, Brent
Kewley, Lisa

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Abstract

The physics regulating star formation (SF) in Hickson Compact Groups (HCG) has thus far been difficult to describe, due to their unique kinematic properties. In this study, we expand upon previous works to devise a more physically meaningful SF relation able to better encompass the physics of these unique systems. We combine CO(1-0) data from the Combined Array from Research in Millimeter Astronomy to trace the column density of molecular gas ${{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\mathrm{gas}}$ and deep Hα imaging taken on the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope tracing ${{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ to investigate SF efficiency across face-on HCG, NGC 7674. We find a lack of universality in SF, with two distinct sequences present in the ${{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\mathrm{gas}}$-${{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\mathrm{SFR}}$ plane; one for inside and one for outside the nucleus. We devise an SF relation based on the multi-freefall nature of gas and the critical density, which itself is dependent on the virial parameter ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{vir}}$, the ratio of turbulent to gravitational energy. We find that our modified SF relation fits the data and describes the physics of this system well with the introduction of a virial parameter of about 5-10 across the galaxy. This ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{vir}}$ leads to an order-of-magnitude reduction in SFR compared to ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{vir}}\approx 1$ systems.

Description

Keywords

Star formation, Star forming regions, AGN host galaxies (2017)

Citation

Source

The Astrophysical Journal

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

Open Access

License Rights

Restricted until