The SAMI Galaxy Survey: a new method to estimate molecular gas surface densities from star formation rates

• Published in: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Main Authors: Federrath, Christoph, Salim, Diane M., Medling, Anne M., Davies, Rebecca L., Yuan, Tiantian, Bian, Fuyan, Groves, Brent A., Ho, I-Ting, Sharp, Robert, Kewley, Lisa J., Sweet, Sarah M., Richards, Samuel N., Bryant, Julia J., Brough, Sarah, Croom, Scott, Scott, Nicholas, Lawrence, Jon, Konstantopoulos, Iraklis, Goodwin, Michael
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 2017
• Subjects: Mass Assembly Gama; Modeling Co Emission; On Spiral Galaxies; Formation Law; Milky-Way; Interstellar Turbulence; Nearby Galaxies; Data Release; 3-Dimensional Distribution; Probability-Distribution; Milky Way; sami
• Online Access: https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:44d4653/UQ44d4653_OA.pdf; https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:44d4653

Stars form in cold molecular clouds. However, molecular gas is difficult to observe because the most abundant molecule (H-2) lacks a permanent dipole moment. Rotational transitions of CO are often used as a tracer of H-2, but CO is much less abundant and the conversion from CO intensity to H-2 mass...