Bibcode
DOI
Cepa, J.; Beckman, J. E.
Bibliographical reference
Astrophysical Journal v.349, p.497
Advertised on:
2
1990
Citations
87
Refereed citations
81
Description
Although spiral structure in grand design galaxies is generally present
in the young and old stellar components and also in both atomic and
molecular gas, the issue of whether the spiral structure is merely
"organized" by a density wave, or whether star formation is triggered
preferentially in the arms is still an open question. Here we present
evidence which appears to favor triggering, or more correctly nonlinear
dependence of star formation efficiency on the underlying gas density.
Starting with a detailed Hα map of NGC 3992, a well-ordered
four-armed spiral, of type 9 on Elmegreen's scale (where 1 is flocculent
and 12 highly ordered), we define an efficiency index for massive star
formation based on the ratio of the density of ionizing photons from
these stars to the underlying H I density. We show that the arm/interarm
ratio of this index, on length scales of 1 kpc, which would take values
close to unity if star formation rate depend linearly on the H I
density, rises to values of well over 10, peaking at ˜25, which
each arm showing comparable behavior. There is, in addition, a striking
dip to unity in the ratio, for all arms, at a common galactocentric
radius, which we suggest is that of corotation. The arm class 9 galaxy
NGC 628 shows highly comparable behavior. Given that star formation
rates almost certainly depend on H2 and not H I densities,
that recent evidence for M51 (Vogel et al.) shows strong H2
}clumping in the arms, but that average arm/interarm H2
densities are generally not greater than ˜3, on scales of t kpc,
and shown no significant changes at corotation, the present evidence
points to a nonlinear star formation rate enhancement mechanism,
functioning via preferential formation of dense H2 clouds in
arms, at sites other than the corotation and the Lindblad resonance
radii. The observed absence of high arm/interarm ratios of the
efficiency index in the flocculent galaxy M33 tends to confirm this
reasoning.