The ALMaQUEST Survey X: What powers merger induced star formation?
Mallory D. Thorp, Sara L. Ellison, Hsi-An Pan, Lihwai Lin, David R., Patton, Asa F. L. Bluck, Dan Walters, Jillian M. Scudder

TL;DR
This study uses spatially resolved ALMA CO observations of 31 merging galaxies to investigate whether merger-induced star formation is primarily driven by increased gas availability or enhanced star formation efficiency.
Contribution
It provides the first detailed spatial analysis of molecular gas and star formation relations across various merger stages, revealing multiple mechanisms behind merger-induced star formation.
Findings
Star formation enhancement is driven by both gas fraction and efficiency.
Different mergers show diverse mechanisms for triggering star formation.
Merger stage does not solely determine the dominant star formation mechanism.
Abstract
Galaxy mergers are known to trigger both extended and central star formation. However, what remains to be understood is whether this triggered star formation is facilitated by enhanced star formation efficiencies, or an abundance of molecular gas fuel. This work presents spatially resolved measurements of CO emission collected with the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) for 20 merging galaxies (either pairs or post-mergers) selected from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. Eleven additional merging galaxies are selected from the ALMA MaNGA QUEnching and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) survey, resulting in a set of 31 mergers at various stages of interaction and covering a broad range of star formation rates (SFR). We investigate galaxy-to-galaxy variations in the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation (rKS: vs. ), the resolved…
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