The Global Schmidt Law in Star‐forming Galaxies

1997/12/16 by Robert C. Kennicutt, Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr. · 5,232 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Law #Lenticular galaxy #Order (exchange) #Parametrization (atmospheric modeling) #Physics #Protogalaxy #Quantum mechanics #Spiral galaxy #Star (game theory) #Star formation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/305588

published in The Astrophysical Journal 498(2), 541-552 (IOP Publishing) · 23 pages, 2 tables, 7 figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal

arxiv created 1997/12/16 · openalex publication_date 1998/05/10 · arxiv updated 2012/08/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

Measurements of Hα, H I, and CO distributions in 61 normal spiral galaxies are combined with published far-infrared and CO observations of 36 infrared-selected starburst galaxies, in order to study the form of the global star formation law over the full range of gas densities and star formation rates (SFRs) observed in galaxies. The disk-averaged SFRs and gas densities for the combined sample are well represented by a Schmidt law with index N = 1.4 ± 0.15. The Schmidt law provides a surprisingly tight parametrization of the global star formation law, extending over several orders of magnitude in SFR and gas density. An alternative formulation of the star formation law, in which the SFR is presumed to scale with the ratio of the gas density to the average orbital timescale, also fits the data very well. Both descriptions provide potentially useful "recipes" for modeling the SFR in numerical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution.

Citations

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