Tails of Gravity: Persistence of Star Formation in the CMZ Environment
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arXiv
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| Autori principali: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Feng, Linjing Jiao, Sihan Xu, Fengwei Liu, Hauyu Baobab Lu, Xing Evans II, Neal J. Mills, Elisabeth A. C. Kovács, Attila Zhang, Qizhou Lin, Yuxin Wu, Jingwen Tsai, Chao-Wei Li, Di Zhang, Zhi-Yu Yan, Zhiqiang Ruan, Hao Deng, Fangyuan Xiong, Yuanzhen Zhang, Ruofei |
| author_facet | Feng, Linjing Jiao, Sihan Xu, Fengwei Liu, Hauyu Baobab Lu, Xing Evans II, Neal J. Mills, Elisabeth A. C. Kovács, Attila Zhang, Qizhou Lin, Yuxin Wu, Jingwen Tsai, Chao-Wei Li, Di Zhang, Zhi-Yu Yan, Zhiqiang Ruan, Hao Deng, Fangyuan Xiong, Yuanzhen Zhang, Ruofei |
| contents | We characterize star-forming gas in six molecular clouds (Sgr B1-off, Sgr B2, Sgr C, the 20 km s$^{-1}$ and 50 km s$^{-1}$ molecular clouds, and the Brick) in the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ), and compare their star-forming activities with those in molecular clouds outside the CMZ. Using multi-band continuum observations taken from ${\it Planck}$, ${\it Herschel}$, JCMT/SCUBA-2, and CSO/SHARC2, we derived 8.5" resolution column density maps for the CMZ clouds and evaluated the column density probability distribution functions (N-PDFs). With the archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 1.3 mm dust continuum data, we further evaluated the mass of the most massive cores ($M_{\rm core}^{\rm ma x}$). We find that the N-PDFs of four of the selected CMZ clouds are well described by a piecewise log-normal + power-law function, while the N-PDFs of the remaining two can be approximated by log-normal functions. In the first four targets, the masses in the power-law component ($M_{\rm gas}^{\rm bound}$), $M_{\rm core}^{\rm max}$, and star formation rate (SFR) are correlated. These correlations are very similar to those derived from low-mass clouds in the Solar neighborhood and massive star-forming regions on the Galactic disk. These findings lead to our key hypotheses: (1) In the extreme environment of the CMZ, the power-law component in the N-PDF also represents self-gravitationally bound gas structures, and (2) evolution and star-forming activities of self-gravitationally bound gas structures may be self-regulated, insensitive to the exterior environment on $\gtrsim$5-10 pc scales. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_20300 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Tails of Gravity: Persistence of Star Formation in the CMZ Environment Feng, Linjing Jiao, Sihan Xu, Fengwei Liu, Hauyu Baobab Lu, Xing Evans II, Neal J. Mills, Elisabeth A. C. Kovács, Attila Zhang, Qizhou Lin, Yuxin Wu, Jingwen Tsai, Chao-Wei Li, Di Zhang, Zhi-Yu Yan, Zhiqiang Ruan, Hao Deng, Fangyuan Xiong, Yuanzhen Zhang, Ruofei Astrophysics of Galaxies We characterize star-forming gas in six molecular clouds (Sgr B1-off, Sgr B2, Sgr C, the 20 km s$^{-1}$ and 50 km s$^{-1}$ molecular clouds, and the Brick) in the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ), and compare their star-forming activities with those in molecular clouds outside the CMZ. Using multi-band continuum observations taken from ${\it Planck}$, ${\it Herschel}$, JCMT/SCUBA-2, and CSO/SHARC2, we derived 8.5" resolution column density maps for the CMZ clouds and evaluated the column density probability distribution functions (N-PDFs). With the archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 1.3 mm dust continuum data, we further evaluated the mass of the most massive cores ($M_{\rm core}^{\rm ma x}$). We find that the N-PDFs of four of the selected CMZ clouds are well described by a piecewise log-normal + power-law function, while the N-PDFs of the remaining two can be approximated by log-normal functions. In the first four targets, the masses in the power-law component ($M_{\rm gas}^{\rm bound}$), $M_{\rm core}^{\rm max}$, and star formation rate (SFR) are correlated. These correlations are very similar to those derived from low-mass clouds in the Solar neighborhood and massive star-forming regions on the Galactic disk. These findings lead to our key hypotheses: (1) In the extreme environment of the CMZ, the power-law component in the N-PDF also represents self-gravitationally bound gas structures, and (2) evolution and star-forming activities of self-gravitationally bound gas structures may be self-regulated, insensitive to the exterior environment on $\gtrsim$5-10 pc scales. |
| title | Tails of Gravity: Persistence of Star Formation in the CMZ Environment |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20300 |