Small Bites: Star formation recipes in extreme dwarfs

Abstract

We study the relationship between the gas column density (σHI) and the star formation rate surface density (σSFRI) for a sample of extremely small (MB ~ -13, Δ V50 ~ 30 km s-1)dwarf irregular galaxies. We find a clear stochasticity in the relation between the gas column density and star formation. All gas with σHI≳ 10 M⊙ pc-2 has some ongoing star formation, but the fraction of the gas with ongoing star formation decreases as the gas column density decreases and falls to about 50 per cent at σHI ~ 3M⊙ pc-2. Further, even for the most dense gas, the MTSY.-1.circledot star formation efficiency is at least a factor of ~2 smaller than typical of star-forming regions in spirals. We also find that the ratio of Hα emission to far-ultraviolet emission increases with the increasing gas column density. This is unlikely to be due to increasing dust extinction because the required dust-to-gas ratios are too high. We suggest instead that this correlation arises because massive (i.e. Hα-producing) stars are formed preferentially in regions with high gas density. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2011 RAS.