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The global star formation law: from dense cores to extreme starbursts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Yu Gao
Yu Gao*
Affiliation:
Purple Mountain Observatory, 2 West Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008; and National Astronomy Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. Chinayugao@pmo.ac.cn, ygao@nrao.edu
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Abstract

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Active star formation (SF) is tightly related to the dense molecular gas in the giant molecular clouds' dense cores. Our HCN (measure of the dense molecular gas) survey in 65 galaxies (including 10 ultraluminous galaxies) reveals a tight linear correlation between HCN and IR (SF rate) luminosities, whereas the correlation between IR and CO (measure of the total molecular gas) luminosities is nonlinear. This suggests that the global SF rate depends more intimately upon the amount of dense molecular gas than the total molecular gas content. This linear relationship extends to both the dense cores in the Galaxy and the hyperluminous extreme starbursts at high-redshift. Therefore, the global SF law in dense gas appears to be linear all the way from dense cores to extreme starbursts, spanning over nine orders of magnitude in IR luminosity.

Keywords

stars: formation – ISM: molecules – infrared: galaxies – radio lines: galaxies – galaxies: high-redshift
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 2 , Symposium S237: Triggered Star Formation in a Turbulent ISM , August 2006 , pp. 331 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

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