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| Paper: |
Determination of Star Formation Timescale and Pattern Speed of Spiral Galaxies |
| Volume: |
390, Pathways Through an Eclectic Universe |
| Page: |
180 |
| Authors: |
Egusa, F.; Sofue, Y.; Komugi, S.; Nakanishi, H. |
| Abstract: |
We propose a method to determine the star formation timescale and pattern speed simultaneously in spiral galaxies. Though they are important and fundamental parameters in galactic dynamics and star formation scenarios, it has hitherto been difficult to derive their values directly from observations. Our method utilizes azimuthal offsets between arms of HII regions and molecular clouds, and has been successfully applied to three nearby galaxies so far through the use of CO and Hα images. As derived star formation timescales fall into the narrow range of 4–13Myr, which is consistent with typical timescales for molecular clouds to collapse gravitationally, a dominant mechanism of global star formation in spiral arms might be the gravitational collapse of molecular clouds. |
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