Image Details
Caption: Figure 9.
Left: SFR surface density, ΣSFR, vs. stellar surface density, Σ⋆, color-coded by the resolved SFE of the molecular gas, SFE = ΣSFR/Σmol, for pixels with 5σ CO detections and selected from the 30 galaxies included in Figure 6. Blue and green density contours are 90%, 60%, and 30% of the points for main-sequence and green valley galaxies. Right: the resolved SFR–M mol relation, color-coded by the resolved molecular-to-stellar mass gas fraction, ﹩{{rR}}_{\star }^{\mathrm{mol}}={{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\mathrm{mol}}/{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{\star }﹩. Conventions are the same as in the left panel. The black dashed lines correspond to the OLS bisector fit for main-sequence galaxies using the model y = α x + β for the rSFMS (left) and the rKS (right) relations. While the left panel exhibits an increase in Σ⋆ for pixels transiting from the main sequence to the green valley, the right panel shows that pixels from these two populations cover a similar parameter space, although with a mild decrease in ΣSFR. This suggests that changes in star formation activity during the transition are driven not only by a lowering of the molecular gas but also a decrease of the SFE.
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.