Journal article
THE STAR FORMATION MAIN SEQUENCE: THE DEPENDENCE OF SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE AND ITS DISPERSION ON GALAXY STELLAR MASS
Astrophysical journal. Letters, Vol.808(2), pp.1-5
07/30/2015
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/808/2/L49
Abstract
ABSTRACT The dispersion of the star formation main sequence (SFMS) reflects the diversity of star formation histories (SFHs) and variation in star formation rates (SFRs) in star-forming galaxies (SFGs) with similar stellar masses (M*). We examine the dispersion of the local SFMS using a complete sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies at with 8.8. The SFRs are estimated from H in combination with 22 m observation from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. We measure the dispersion of specific SFRs (sSFRs) as a function of M*. We confirm that the dispersion increases with M* from 0.37 0.01 dex at to 0.51 0.02 dex at 10.2. Despite star formation being mostly associated with disks, the dispersion of disk sSFR still increases with M*. We conclude that the presence of bulges/bars is likely responsible for the large dispersion of sSFR in massive SFGs, while low-mass SFGs are mostly disk dominated and thus have a small dispersion. Our results suggest that star formation on galactic scales is dramatically affected by central dense structures through both enhancing and/or quenching processes, while lower-mass SFGs tend to have less bursty SFHs. However, the dispersion of the sSFR becomes significantly smaller and remains constant when only disk-dominated SFGs are counted. This finding implies that the impact of stochastic stellar feedback on star formation is likely to follow the same pattern in all disk galaxies, showing no correlation with halo potential.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- THE STAR FORMATION MAIN SEQUENCE: THE DEPENDENCE OF SPECIFIC STAR FORMATION RATE AND ITS DISPERSION ON GALAXY STELLAR MASS
- Creators
- Kexin Guo - Chinese Academy of SciencesXian Zhong Zheng - Purple Mountain ObservatoryTao Wang - Nanjing UniversityHai Fu - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Astrophysical journal. Letters, Vol.808(2), pp.1-5
- DOI
- 10.1088/2041-8205/808/2/L49
- ISSN
- 2041-8205
- eISSN
- 2041-8213
- Publisher
- The American Astronomical Society
- Number of pages
- 5
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/30/2015
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984199842402771
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