学术文献库

The physics regulating star formation (SF) in Hickson Compact Groups (HCG) has thus far been difficult to describe, due to their unique kinematic properties. In this study we expand upon previous works to devise a more physically meaningful SF relation able to better encompass the physics of these unique systems. We combine CO(1--0) data from the Combined Array from Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) to trace the column density of molecular gas $Σ_\mathrm{gas}$ and deep H$α$ imaging taken on the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope tracing $Σ_\mathrm{SFR}$ to investigate star formation efficiency across face-on HCG, NGC7674. We find a lack of universality in star formation, with two distinct sequences present in the $Σ_\mathrm{gas}-Σ_\mathrm{SFR}$ plane; one for inside and one for outside the nucleus. We devise a SF relation based on the multi-freefall nature of gas and the critical density, which itself is dependent on the virial parameter $α_{\mathrm{vir}}$, the ratio of turbulent to gravitational energy. We find that our modified SF relation fits the data and describes the physics of this system well with the introduction of a virial parameter of about 5--10 across the galaxy. This $α_{\mathrm{vir}}$ leads to an order-of-magnitude reduction in SFR compared to $α_{\mathrm{vir}}\approx 1$ systems.