Gas Content and Star Formation Thresholds in the Evolution of Spiral Galaxies
Stacy McGaugh, Erwin de Blok
Abstract
The gas mass fraction (fg) of spiral galaxies is strongly correlated with the central surface brightness of their disks. There exist many dim galaxies with long gas consumption time scales and fg > 0.5. This resolves the gas consumption paradox. The surface density of gas follows the optical surface brightness, but does not vary by as large a factor. This is the signature of a critical density threshold for star formation. Such a mechanism seems to be responsible for the slow evolution of dim galaxies.
Create a lesson
Related papers
On binary pulsars and the force of gravity
Davor Palle
Tidal torques. A critical review of some techniques
Michael Efroimsky, James G. Williams
Dynamics of a Spherical Accretion Shock with Neutrino Heating and Alpha-Particle Recombination
Rodrigo Fernández, Christopher Thompson
Asymptotically FRW black holes
J. T. Firouzjaee, Reza Mansouri
Reaction of Accretion Disks to Abrupt Mass Loss During Binary Black Hole Merger
Sean M. O'Neill, M. Coleman Miller, Tamara Bogdanovic et al.
A Gamma-Ray Burst/Pulsar for Cosmic-Ray Positrons with a Dark Matter-like Spectrum
Kunihito Ioka