Kennicutt–Schmidt law
In astronomy, the Kennicutt–Schmidt law is an empirical relation between the surface gas density and star formation rate (SFR) in a given region.[1] The relation was first examined by Maarten Schmidt in a 1959 paper [2] where he proposed that the SFR surface density scales as some positive power of the local gas surface density. i.e.
- .
In general, the SFR surface density is in units of solar masses per year per square parsec and the gas surface density in grams per square parsec . Using an analysis of gaseous helium and young stars in the
In 1989, Robert Kennicutt found that the H intensities in a sample of 15 galaxies could be fit with the earlier Schmidt relations with a power law index of .[3] More recently, he examined the connection between surface gas density and SFR for a larger set of galaxies to estimate a value of .[4][5]
References
- ^ The name "Schmidt law" is now commonly used for a general relation between volume gas density and star formation rate, and the Kennicutt-Schmidt law for the surface gas density and star formation rate.
- doi:10.1086/146614.
- doi:10.1086/167834.
- S2CID 250812069.
- S2CID 118667387.