Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main-sequence galaxies
Article
Kim, Jaeyeon, Chevance, Mélanie, Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik, Leroy, Adam K., Schruba, Andreas, Barnes, Ashley T., Bigiel, Frank, Blanc, Guillermo A., Cao, Yixian, Congiu, Enrico, Dale, Daniel A., Faesi, Christopher M., Glover, Simon C. O., Grasha, Kathryn, Groves, Brent, Hughes, Annie, Klessen, Ralf S., Kreckel, Kathryn, McElroy, Rebecca, ..., Williams, T.G.. 2022. "Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main-sequence galaxies." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 516 (2), pp. 3006-3028. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2339
| Article Title | Environmental dependence of the molecular cloud lifecycle in 54 main-sequence galaxies |
|---|---|
| ERA Journal ID | 1074 |
| Article Category | Article |
| Authors | Kim, Jaeyeon, Chevance, Mélanie, Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik, Leroy, Adam K., Schruba, Andreas, Barnes, Ashley T., Bigiel, Frank, Blanc, Guillermo A., Cao, Yixian, Congiu, Enrico, Dale, Daniel A., Faesi, Christopher M., Glover, Simon C. O., Grasha, Kathryn, Groves, Brent, Hughes, Annie, Klessen, Ralf S., Kreckel, Kathryn, McElroy, Rebecca, Pan, Hsi-An, Pety, Jérôme, Querejeta, Miguel, Razza, Alessandro, Rosolowsky, Erik, Saito, Toshiki, Schinnerer, Eva, Sun, Jiayi, Tomičić, Neven, Usero, Antonio and Williams, T.G. |
| Journal Title | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Journal Citation | 516 (2), pp. 3006-3028 |
| Number of Pages | 23 |
| Year | 2022 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
| ISSN | 0035-8711 |
| 1365-2966 | |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2339 |
| Web Address (URL) | https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/516/2/3006/6673429 |
| Abstract | The processes of star formation and feedback, regulating the cycle of matter between gas and stars on the scales of giant molecular clouds (GMCs; ∼100 pc), play a major role in governing galaxy evolution. Measuring the time-scales of GMC evolution is important to identify and characterize the specific physical mechanisms that drive this transition. By applying a robust statistical method to high-resolution CO and narrow-band H α imaging from the PHANGS survey, we systematically measure the evolutionary timeline from molecular clouds to exposed young stellar regions on GMC scales, across the discs of an unprecedented sample of 54 star-forming main-sequence galaxies (excluding their unresolved centres). We find that clouds live for about 1−3 GMC turbulence crossing times (5−30 Myr) and are efficiently dispersed by stellar feedback within 1−5 Myr once the star-forming region becomes partially exposed, resulting in integrated star formation efficiencies of 1−8 per cent. These ranges reflect physical galaxy-to-galaxy variation. In order to evaluate whether galactic environment influences GMC evolution, we correlate our measurements with average properties of the GMCs and their local galactic environment. We find several strong correlations that can be physically understood, revealing a quantitative link between galactic-scale environmental properties and the small-scale GMC evolution. Notably, the measured CO-visible cloud lifetimes become shorter with decreasing galaxy mass, mostly due to the increasing presence of CO-dark molecular gas in such environment. Our results represent a first step towards a comprehensive picture of cloud assembly and dispersal, which requires further extension and refinement with tracers of the atomic gas, dust, and deeply embedded stars. |
| Keywords | stars: formation; ISM: clouds; ISM: structure; galaxies: ISM; |
| Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
| ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 510102. Astronomical instrumentation |
| Public Notes | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
| Byline Affiliations | Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Ohio State University, United States | |
| Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany | |
| University of Bonn, Germany | |
| Carnegie Institution for Science, United States | |
| University of Chile, Chile | |
| Aarhus University, Denmark | |
| University of Connecticut, United States | |
| Australian National University | |
| ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions, Australia | |
| University of Western Australia | |
| National center for scientific research (CNRS), France | |
| University of Toulouse, France | |
| School of Mathematics, Physics and Computing | |
| Tamkang University, Taiwan | |
| Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM), France | |
| Sorbonne University, France | |
| National Astronomical Observatory (IGN), Spain | |
| University of Alberta, Canada | |
| National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Japan | |
| McMaster University, Canada | |
| University of Toronto, Canada | |
| University of Florence, Italy | |
| Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany |
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