On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies

Wang E, Lilly SJ, Pezzulli G, Matthee JJ. 2019. On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. 877(2), 132.


Journal Article | Published | English

Scopus indexed
Author
Wang, Enci; Lilly, Simon J.; Pezzulli, Gabriele; Matthee, Jorryt JISTA
Abstract
To understand star formation in galaxies, we investigate the star formation rate (SFR) surface density (ΣSFR) profiles for galaxies, based on a well-defined sample of 976 star-forming MaNGA galaxies. We find that the typical ΣSFR profiles within 1.5Re of normal SF galaxies can be well described by an exponential function for different stellar mass intervals, while the sSFR profile shows positive gradients, especially for more massive SF galaxies. This is due to the more pronounced central cores or bulges rather than the onset of a `quenching' process. While galaxies that lie significantly above (or below) the star formation main sequence (SFMS) show overall an elevation (or suppression) of ΣSFR at all radii, this central elevation (or suppression) is more pronounced in more massive galaxies. The degree of central enhancement and suppression is quite symmetric, suggesting that both the elevation and suppression of star formation are following the same physical processes. Furthermore, we find that the dispersion in ΣSFR within and across the population is found to be tightly correlated with the inferred gas depletion time, whether based on the stellar surface mass density or the orbital dynamical time. This suggests that we are seeing the response of a simple gas-regulator system to variations in the accretion rate. This is explored using a heuristic model that can quantitatively explain the dependence of σ(ΣSFR) on gas depletion timescale. Variations in accretion rate are progressively more damped out in regions of low star-formation efficiency leading to a reduced amplitude of variations in star-formation.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2019-06-04
Journal Title
The Astrophysical Journal
Acknowledgement
We are grateful to the anonymous referee for their thoughtful and constructive review of the paper and their several suggestions (including the analysis of Section 3.4), which have improved the paper. This research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS-IV acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS website is www.sdss.org. SDSS-IV is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS Collaboration, including the Brazilian Participation Group, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University, the Chilean Participation Group, the French Participation Group, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the Johns Hopkins University, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)/University of Tokyo, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA Garching), Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE), National Astronomical Observatory of China, New Mexico State University, New York University, University of Notre Dame, Observatário Nacional/MCTI, the Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, United Kingdom Participation Group, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of Arizona, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oxford, University of Portsmouth, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University
Volume
877
Issue
2
Article Number
132
ISSN
eISSN
IST-REx-ID

Cite this

Wang E, Lilly SJ, Pezzulli G, Matthee JJ. On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. 2019;877(2). doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab1c5b
Wang, E., Lilly, S. J., Pezzulli, G., & Matthee, J. J. (2019). On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab1c5b
Wang, Enci, Simon J. Lilly, Gabriele Pezzulli, and Jorryt J Matthee. “On the Elevation and Suppression of Star Formation within Galaxies.” The Astrophysical Journal. IOP Publishing, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab1c5b.
E. Wang, S. J. Lilly, G. Pezzulli, and J. J. Matthee, “On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies,” The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 877, no. 2. IOP Publishing, 2019.
Wang E, Lilly SJ, Pezzulli G, Matthee JJ. 2019. On the elevation and suppression of star formation within galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. 877(2), 132.
Wang, Enci, et al. “On the Elevation and Suppression of Star Formation within Galaxies.” The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 877, no. 2, 132, IOP Publishing, 2019, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab1c5b.
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