Kennicutt-Schmidt Law in the Central Region of NGC 4321 as Seen by ALMA

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 26896
• Main Authors: Azeez, Jazeel H., Hwang, C.-Y., Abidin, Zamri Z., Ibrahim, Zainol A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/33/34/863; 639/33/34/865; Gases; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Star & galaxy formation; Stars & galaxies; Velocity
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep26896

We present the Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) cycle-0 science verification data of the CO(1–0) line emission in the central region of NGC 4321 (also known as M100) at the distance of 17.1 Mpc and VLA, L-band data of HI of the same galaxy. We have drawn the center area of M100 in the 12 CO(J = 1–0) line with the resolution of (3.87″ × 2.53″) as viewed by ALMA, along with HI and Spitzer 8 and 3.6 μm data. The relationship between the surface density of molecular gas mass ∑H 2 and that of star formation rate ∑SFR has been investigated, in addition to the relationship between the surface density of the neutral atomic hydrogen mass and that of ∑SFR (Kennicutt–Schmidt law) in this galaxy with a high spatial resolution. The results indicate that a significant correlation exists between the SFR surface density and the molecular gas mass density in the ~2 kpc region. The power-law index has been determined for three regions: center, upper and lower arms. The value of this index in the center region is 1.13, which follows the traditional (K-S) law and indicates that the molecular gas is affected by star formation.