Gas Mass Fractions and the Evolution of Spiral Galaxies
Gas Mass Fractions and the Evolution of Spiral Galaxies
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DOI：
10.1086/304100
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发表时间：
1996-12
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
S. McGaugh;W. J. Blok
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. McGaugh;W. J. Blok
我们证明了螺旋星系的气体质量分数与光度和表面亮度密切相关。它与线性大小无关。气体含量随光度和表面亮度的变化速率相同，表明演化是固定尺寸的。昏暗的星系显然比明亮的星系进化得更慢，只消耗了大约一半的气体。这解决了气体消耗悖论，因为存在许多具有大型气藏的星系。这些富含气体的星系一定是在哈勃时间的后半段形成了它们的大部分恒星。在z = 0处存在这样的不成熟星系表明，要么星系的形成是一个漫长甚至持续的过程，要么在脆弱的气体盘中，重要恒星形成的开始可以延迟任意时间。
We show that the gas mass fraction of spiral galaxies is strongly correlated with luminosity and surface brightness. It is not correlated with linear size. Gas fraction varies with luminosity and surface brightness at the same rate, indicating evolution at fixed size. Dim galaxies are clearly less evolved than bright ones, having consumed only ~ of their gas. This resolves the gas consumption paradox, since there exist many galaxies with large gas reservoirs. These gas-rich galaxies must have formed the bulk of their stellar populations in the last half of a Hubble time. The existence of such immature galaxies at z = 0 indicates that either galaxy formation is a lengthy or even ongoing process, or the onset of significant star formation can be delayed for arbitrary periods in tenuous gas disks.