Star formation rates and the far-infrared luminosity of Galactic molecular clouds

Details Star formation rates and the far-infrared luminosity of Galactic molecular clouds Star formation rates and the far-infrared luminosity of Galactic molecular clouds

Nov 1988

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1988apj...334l..51m&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 334, Nov. 1, 1988, p. L51-L54. NASA-supported research.

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Far Infrared Radiation, Infrared Sources (Astronomy), Luminosity, Milky Way Galaxy, Molecular Clouds, Star Formation Rate, Carbon Monoxide, Computational Astrophysics, H Ii Regions, Interacting Galaxies, Mass To Light Ratios, Stellar Mass, Virial Theorem

Scientific paper

The CO luminosity, far-IR luminosity, and virial mass of 55 molecular clouds are determined and related to star formation rates (SFRs) in the clouds. The SFR of OB stars per unit of available molecular mass is found to be independent of cloud mass and varies widely over a range of about 100 for clouds of mass between 30,000 and five million solar masses. The far-IR luminosity is proportional to the first power of the CO luminosity for clouds undergoing high-mass star formation. There are massive clouds without any current high-mass star formation. The average gas depletion time is about 2.5 billion yr. The far-IR luminosity-to-mass ratio for isolated or weakly interacting spiral galaxies observed by IRAS is twice that for the average Galactic molecular cloud. The star formation mechanism operating in strongly interacting galaxies is five times more efficient than that of the most active Galactic cloud and 30 times that of the average Galactic cloud.

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