# Propagation of star formation at sub-kiloparsec scales

## TL;DR

This study investigates how star formation propagates across sub-kiloparsec scales, revealing the influence of turbulence, stellar winds, and supernovae on star cluster ages and their spatial distribution in different galaxy morphologies.

## Contribution

It provides new quantitative analysis of star formation propagation at small scales, highlighting the roles of turbulence and other physical processes in different galaxy types.

## Key findings

- Star cluster age increases with separation, following a power law.
- Turbulence dominates star formation propagation up to 500 pc.
- Stellar winds and supernovae influence smaller scales (<100 pc).

## Abstract

We study the propagation of star formation based on the investigation of the separation of young star clusters from HII regions nearest to them. The relation between the separation and U-B colour index (or age) of a star cluster was found. The average age of star clusters increases with the separation as the 1.0-1.2 power in the separation range from 40 to 200 pc and as the 0.4-0.9 power in the range of 100-500 pc in the galaxies with symmetric morphology. The galaxies with distorted asymmetric disc structure show more complex and steeper (power >1.2 at separations from 40 to 500 pc) dependence between the age and the separation. Our results confirm the findings of previous studies on the dominant role of turbulence in propagation of the star formation process on spatial scales up to 500 pc and on time scales up to 300 Myr. On a smaller scale (=<100 pc), other physical processes, such as stellar winds and supernova explosions, play an important role along with turbulence. On the scale of stellar associations (100-200 pc and smaller), the velocity of star formation propagation is almost constant and it has a typical value of a few km/s.