Pessa, IsmaelSchinnerer, EBelfiore, FrancescoEmsellem, EricLeroy, Adam KSchruba, AndreasKruijssen, J M DiederikPan, H.-A.Blanc, G. A.Sanchez-Blazquez, P.Grasha, KathrynGroves, Brent2023-03-282023-03-280004-6361http://hdl.handle.net/1885/287772Aims. The complexity of star formation at the physical scale of molecular clouds is not yet fully understood. We investigate the mechanisms regulating the formation of stars in different environments within nearby star-forming galaxies from the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) sample. Methods. Integral field spectroscopic data and radio-interferometric observations of 18 galaxies were combined to explore the existence of the resolved star formation main sequence (ςstellar versus ςSFR), resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation (ςmol. gas versus ςSFR), and resolved molecular gas main sequence (ςstellar versus ςmol. gas), and we derived their slope and scatter at spatial resolutions from 100 pc to 1 kpc (under various assumptions). Results. All three relations were recovered at the highest spatial resolution (100 pc). Furthermore, significant variations in these scaling relations were observed across different galactic environments. The exclusion of non-detections has a systematic impact on the inferred slope as a function of the spatial scale. Finally, the scatter of the ςmol. gas + stellar versus ςSFR correlation is smaller than that of the resolved star formation main sequence, but higher than that found for the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. Conclusions. The resolved molecular gas main sequence has the tightest relation at a spatial scale of 100 pc (scatter of 0.34 dex), followed by the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation (0.41 dex) and then the resolved star formation main sequence (0.51 dex). This is consistent with expectations from the timescales involved in the evolutionary cycle of molecular clouds. Surprisingly, the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation shows the least variation across galaxies and environments, suggesting a tight link between molecular gas and subsequent star formation. The scatter of the three relations decreases at lower spatial resolutions, with the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation being the tightest (0.27 dex) at a spatial scale of 1 kpc. Variation in the slope of the resolved star formation main sequence among galaxies is partially due to different detection fractions of ςSFR with respect to ςstellar.DL, ES, HAP, TS, and TGW acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 694343). FB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 726384/Empire). The work of AKL and JS is partially supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No. 1615105, 1615109, and 1653300. E.C. acknowledges support from ANID project Basal AFB-170002. JMDK and MC gratefully acknowledge funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number KR4801/1-1) and the DFG Sachbeihilfe (grant number KR4801/2-1). JMDK gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program via the ERC Starting Grant MUSTANG (grant agreement number 714907). KK gratefully acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the form of an Emmy Noether Research Group (grant number KR4598/2-1, PI Kreckel). MQ acknowledges funding from the research project PID2019-106027GA-C44 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. AU acknowledges support from the Spanish funding grants AYA2016-79006-P (MINECO/FEDER), PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER), and PID2019-108765GB-I00 (MICINN). SCOG and RK acknowledge funding from the European Research Council via the ERC Synergy Grant “ECOGAL – Understanding our Galactic ecosystem: From the disk of the Milky Way to the formation sites of stars and planets” (project ID 855130), from the DFG via the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 881, Project-ID 138713538) “The Milky Way System” (subprojects A1, B1, B2 and B8) and from the Heidelberg cluster of excellence (EXC 2181 – 390900948) “STRUCTURES: A unifying approach to emergent phenomena in the physical world, mathematics, and complex data”, funded by the German Excellence Strategy. Based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programmes IDs 094.C-0623, 098.C0484 and 1100.B-0651. This paper also makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.01161.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00925.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00956.S and ADS/JAO.ALMA#2017.1.00886.L. 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.application/pdfen-AU© I. Pessa et al. 2021https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/galaxies: ISMgalaxies: evolutiongalaxies: star formationgalaxies: generalStar formation scaling relations at ∼100 pc from PHANGS: Impact of completeness and spatial scale202110.1051/0004-6361/2021407332022-01-16Creative Commons Attribution License