Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21111307w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #113.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.943
Other
Scientific paper
We investigate the star formation law at low surface density using a sample of 20 low surface brightness galaxies with resolved HI surface density profiles in the literature and with UV observations from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer. All but one of the galaxies also have optical imaging from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We measure average gas surface densities and average UV and optical surface brightnesses for each galaxy within the same aperture. Using the UV surface brightness with no dust correction to determine the star formation rate surface density, the low surface brightness galaxies lie significantly below the extrapolation of the Kennicutt-Schmidt star formation law derived from observations of high surface brightness galaxies. While the dust content of low surface brightness galaxies remains poorly constrained, two of the galaxies have far-IR detections with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The UV attenuation for these two galaxies implied by the UV to FIR flux ratio is not large enough to move them onto the extrapolation of the high surface brightness star formation law. The UV-optical colors are similar to colors for high surface brightness star-forming galaxies and would be inconsistent with UV emission from older stellar populations. In addition to dust attenuation, we discuss several other alternative explanations for the low UV surface brightness of these galaxies, including azimuthal averaging of the gas and star formation surface densities, a gas density threshold for star formation, rapid variations in the star formation rate, and variations in the pressure in the interstellar medium.
GALEX Science Team
Wyder Ted K.
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