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On the Impact of Empirical and Theoretical Star Formation Laws on Galaxy Formation

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The Physics of Galaxy Formation

Part of the book series: Springer Theses ((Springer Theses))

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Abstract

In this Chapter, the consequences of applying different parameter-free star formation laws on galaxy properties is, using the galaxy formation model GALFORM. I investigate which observables are sensitive to a change in the star formation law, without altering any other model parameters. A change in the star formation law (i) does not significantly affect either the star formation history of the universe or the galaxy luminosity function in the optical nad near-infrared, due to an effective balance between quiescent and burst star formation modes; (ii) greatly affects the cold gas contents of galaxies; (iii) changes the location of galaxies in the star formation rate versus stellar mass plane, so that a second sequence of “passive” galaxies arises, in addition to the known “active” sequence. I show that this plane can be used to discriminate between the different star formation laws.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We have rescaled the value of \(A\) to account for the difference between the Salpeter IMF assumed by K98 and the Kennicutt IMF used in our model for quiescent SF. The SFRs used in K98 were inferred from H\(\alpha \) luminosities, and for a fixed H\(\alpha \) luminosity, the SFR on assuming a Kennicutt IMF is \(0.91\) times that inferred on adopting a Salpeter IMF. Note also that we always use gas surface densities including helium, assuming a hydrogen mass fraction of 74 %.

  2. 2.

    Note that we include the associated helium in the molecular gas mass, in the same way as for the total gas mass.

  3. 3.

    Leroy et al. (2008) derived their SFRs from a calibration using far-UV luminosities, assuming a Kroupa (2001) IMF. For the Kennicutt IMF, we infer SFRs 1.02 times larger. For simplicity, we do not apply this correction factor, since it is so close to 1.

  4. 4.

    Data was downloaded from the public webpage http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/SDSS/DR7/.

  5. 5.

    Since in the observational samples a universal Salpeter IMF was assumed when estimating SFRs and stellar masses, we scale their stellar masses and SFRs by factors of \(0.5\) and \(0.91\) respectively (e.g. Bell et al. 2003a), to correspond to a Kennicutt (1983) IMF.

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  1. Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Claudia Del P. Lagos

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  1. Claudia Del P. Lagos
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Lagos, C.D.P. (2014). On the Impact of Empirical and Theoretical Star Formation Laws on Galaxy Formation. In: The Physics of Galaxy Formation. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01526-2_3

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