TL;DR
This paper proposes a universal law linking the largest unstable mass scale in galactic rotation to star formation rates, explained by self-regulation and turbulence in the interstellar medium, with predictions matching observations.
Contribution
It introduces a new relation between the largest unstable mass scale and star formation rate, supported by a theoretical model and observational data.
Findings
Largest unstable mass scale correlates with star formation rate
Self-regulation towards marginal Toomre stability explains the relation
Predicted star formation rates agree with observations
Abstract
We study the galactic-scale triggering of star formation. We find that the largest mass-scale not stabilized by rotation, a well defined quantity in a rotating system and with clear dynamical meaning, strongly correlates with the star formation rate in a wide range of galaxies. We find that this relation can be understood in terms of self-regulation towards marginal Toomre stability and the amount of turbulence allowed to sustain the system in this self-regulated quasi-stationary state. We test such an interpretation by computing the predicted star formation rates for a galactic interstellar medium characterized by lognormal probability distribution function and find good agreement with the observed relation.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.