Abstract: The dynamical state of molecular gas on large and small scales is intimately related to its ability to form stars. A common hypothesis states that the kinetic energy in molecular gas should on average match the combination of self-gravity, external gravity, and ambient pressure, which puts the bulk gas in a dynamical equilibrium. I will present my recent work that tested this decades-old hypothesis with high-quality data from the PHANGS survey, and then put our results into the framework of self-regulated star formation in galaxies. I will also demonstrate the implications of these results on the vertical distribution of gas in galaxy disks, and present a novel approach to determine the molecular disk scale height. This approach is being calibrated and tested in numerical simulations and will be widely applied to the PHANGS galaxy sample.
Dynamical Balance and Vertical Distribution of the Molecular ISM in Nearby Galaxies
Jiayi Sun (McMaster) // November 23, 2021
Abstract: The dynamical state of molecular gas on large and small scales is intimately related to its ability to form stars. A common hypothesis states that the kinetic energy in molecular gas should on average match the combination of self-gravity, external gravity, and ambient pressure, which puts the bulk gas in a dynamical equilibrium. I will present my recent work that tested this decades-old hypothesis with high-quality data from the PHANGS survey, and then put our results into the framework of self-regulated star formation in galaxies. I will also demonstrate the implications of these results on the vertical distribution of gas in galaxy disks, and present a novel approach to determine the molecular disk scale height. This approach is being calibrated and tested in numerical simulations and will be widely applied to the PHANGS galaxy sample.