Molecular Gas and Star-Formation In Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
Tian-Wen Cao, Hong Wu, Wei Du, Feng-Jie Lei, Ming Zhu, Jan Wouterloot,, Harriet Parsons, Yi-Nan Zhu, Chao-Jian Wu, Fan Yang, Chen Cao, Zhi-Min Zhou,, Min He, Jun-Jie Jin, James E. Wicker
TL;DR
This study investigates molecular gas content and star formation in low surface brightness galaxies, finding that the lack of molecular gas explains their low star formation rates and efficiencies.
Contribution
First observational constraints on molecular gas in LSBGs using CO spectra, linking low molecular gas content to low star formation activity.
Findings
No CO detected, only upper limits on H2 mass
Star formation rates are mostly below 0.4 Msun/yr
Star formation efficiencies are very low
Abstract
We have obtained CO(J=2-1) spectra of nine face-on low surface brightness galaxies(LSBGs) using the JCMT 15-meter telescope and observed Ha images using the 2.16-meter telescope of NAOC. As no CO has been detected, only upper limits on the H2 masses are given. The upper limits of total molecular hydrogen masses are about (1.2-82.4) x 10^7 Msun. Their star formation rates are mainly lower than 0.4 Msun/yr and star formation efficiencies are lower than 1.364 x 10^10 /yr. Our results show that the absence of molecular gas content is the direct reason for the low star formation rate. The low star formation efficiency probably resulted from the low efficiency of HI gas transforming to H2 gas.
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