Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2011

Publication Title

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.1088/0004-637X/739/2/97

Abstract

We combine data from the Australia Telescope National Facility and Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope to investigate the neutral interstellar medium (ISM) in AM0644-741, a large and robustly star-forming ring galaxy. The galaxy's ISM is concentrated in the 42 kpc diameter starburst ring, but appears dominated by atomic gas, with a global molecular fraction (f mol) of only 0.062 ± 0.005. Apart from the starburst peak, the gas ring appears stable against the growth of gravitational instabilities (Q gas = 3-11). Including the stellar component lowers Q overall, but not enough to make Q < 1 everywhere. High star formation efficiencies (SFEs) follow from the ring's low H2 content. AM0644-741's star formation law is highly peculiar: H I obeys a Schmidt law while H2 is uncorrelated with star formation rate density. Photodissociation models yield low volume densities in the ring, especially in the starburst quadrant (n 2 cm–3), implying a warm neutral medium dominated ISM. At the same time, the ring's pressure and ambient far-ultraviolet radiation field lead to the expectation of a predominantly molecular ISM. We argue that the ring's high SFE, low f mol and n, and peculiar star formation law follow from the ISM's 100 Myr confinement time in the starburst ring, which amplifies the destructive effects of embedded massive stars and supernovae. As a result, the ring's molecular ISM becomes dominated by small clouds, causing to be significantly underestimated by 12CO line fluxes: in effect, X CO X Gal despite the ring's ≥solar metallicity. The observed H I is primarily a low-density photodissociation product, i.e., a tracer rather than a precursor of massive star formation. Such an "over-cooked" ISM may be a general characteristic of evolved starburst ring galaxies.

Comments

This version of the paper was obtained from arXIV.org. In order for the work to be deposited in arXIV.org, the author must hold copyright or it must be available under the Creative Commons Attribution license, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license, or Create Commons Public Domain Declaration. The publisher's final edited version of this article will be available at The Astrophysical Journal.

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