HCN, HNC, H13CN & HC3N of Galactic Center map. II.

We report a statistical analysis exploring the origin of the overall low star formation efficiency (SFE) of the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ) and the SFE diversity among the CMZ clouds using a wide-field HCN J=4-3 map, whose optically thin critical density (~10^7^/cm^3^) is the highest among the tracers ever used in CMZ surveys. Logistic regression is performed to empirically formulate star formation probability of 195 HCN clumps, 13 of which contain star formation signatures.

The explanatory parameters in the best-fit model are reduced into the virial parameter {alpha}_vir_ without significant contribution from other parameters, whereas the performance of the model without {alpha}_vir_ is no better than that using randomly generated data. The threshold {alpha}_vir_ is 6, which translates into a volume density (n_H_2__) of 10^4.6^/cm^3^ with the n_H_2__-{alpha}_vir_ correlation. The scarcity of the low-{alpha}_vir_ clumps, whose fraction to all HCN clumps is 0.1, can be considered as one of the immediate causes of the suppressed SFE.