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Table · dataset · 2020

SAMI Galaxy Survey. Gas surface densities

Listed in IVOA Registry (Virtual Observatory)

Stars form in cold molecular clouds.

Description

However, molecular gas is difficult to observe because the most abundant molecule (H_2_) lacks a permanent dipole moment. Rotational transitions of CO are often used as a tracer of H_2_, but CO is much less abundant and the conversion from CO intensity to H_2_ mass is often highly uncertain.

Here we present a new method for estimating the column density of cold molecular gas ({Sigma}_gas_) using optical spectroscopy. We utilize the spatially resolved H{alpha} maps of flux and velocity dispersion from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey. We derive maps of {Sigma}_gas_ by inverting the multi-freefall star formation relation, which connects the star formation rate surface density ({Sigma}_SFR_) with {Sigma}_gas_ and the turbulent Mach number (M).

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Based on the measured range of {Sigma}_SFR_=0.005-1.5M_{sun}_/yr/kpc^2^ and M=18-130, we predict {Sigma}_gas_=7-200M_{sun}_/pc^2^ in the star-forming regions of our sample of 260 SAMI galaxies. These values are close to previously measured {Sigma}_gas_ obtained directly with unresolved CO observations of similar galaxies at low redshift. We classify each galaxy in our sample as 'star-forming' (219) or 'composite/AGN/shock' (41), and find that in 'composite/AGN/shock' galaxies the average {Sigma}_SFR_, M and {Sigma}_gas_ are enhanced by factors of 2.0, 1.6 and 1.3, respectively, compared to star-forming galaxies.

We compare our predictions of {Sigma}_gas_ with those obtained by inverting the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation and find that our new method is a factor of 2 more accurate in predicting {Sigma}_gas_, with an average deviation of 32 per cent from the actual {Sigma}_gas_.

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IVOA Registry (Virtual Observatory)ivo://cds.vizier/j/mnras/468/396514 d agoJSON v1
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concepts[modality].ivoa_waveband:opticalsource · IVOA Registryconnector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0
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