Dwarf Galaxies with Ionizing Radiation Feedback. II: Spatially-resolved Star Formation Relation

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations with ionizing radiation feedback to analyze the spatially-resolved star formation relation, revealing significant scatter at GMC scales and insights into the breakdown of traditional star formation laws.

Contribution

It introduces a novel simulation approach including radiative transfer for ionizing radiation, enabling detailed spatially-resolved mock observations of star formation tracers.

Findings

Large scatter in star formation rate and molecular gas correlation at GMC scales.

H-alpha emission traces hot gas displaced from molecular gas peaks.

Star formation laws break down at small scales due to stellar drift and feedback dispersal.

Abstract

We investigate the spatially-resolved star formation relation using a galactic disk formed in a comprehensive high-resolution (3.8 pc) simulation. Our new implementation of stellar feedback includes ionizing radiation as well as supernova explosions, and we handle ionizing radiation by solving the radiative transfer equation rather than by a subgrid model. Photoheating by stellar radiation stabilizes gas against Jeans fragmentation, reducing the star formation rate. Because we have self-consistently calculated the location of ionized gas, we are able to make spatially-resolved mock observations of star formation tracers, such as H-alpha emission. We can also observe how stellar feedback manifests itself in the correlation between ionized and molecular gas. Applying our techniques to the disk in a galactic halo of 2.3e11 Msun, we find that the correlation between star formation rate density (estimated from mock H-alpha emission) and molecular hydrogen density shows large scatter, especially at high resolutions of <~ 75 pc that are comparable to the size of giant molecular clouds (GMCs). This is because an aperture of GMC size captures only particular stages of GMC evolution, and because H-alpha traces hot gas around star-forming regions and is displaced from the molecular hydrogen peaks themselves. By examining the evolving environment around star clusters, we speculate that the breakdown of the traditional star formation laws of the Kennicutt-Schmidt type at small scales is further aided by a combination of stars drifting from their birthplaces, and molecular clouds being dispersed via stellar feedback.