{
  "id": "2107.00412",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2021-07-01T12:47:21.000Z",
  "updated": "2021-07-01T12:47:21.000Z",
  "title": "A Comparison between Nuclear Ring Star Formation in LIRGs and Normal Galaxies with the Very Large Array",
  "authors": [
    "Y. Song",
    "S. T. Linden",
    "A. S. Evans",
    "L. Barcos-Muñoz",
    "G. C. Privon",
    "I. Yoon",
    "E. J. Murphy",
    "K. L. Larson",
    "T. Díaz-Santos",
    "L. Armus",
    "Joseph M. Mazzarella",
    "J. Howell",
    "H. Inami",
    "N. Torres-Albà",
    "V. U",
    "V. Charmandaris",
    "E. Momjian",
    "J. McKinney",
    "D. Kunneriath"
  ],
  "comment": "Accepted for publication in ApJ",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.GA"
  ],
  "abstract": "Nuclear rings are excellent laboratories for studying intense star formation. We present results from a study of nuclear star-forming rings in five nearby normal galaxies from the Star Formation in Radio Survey (SFRS) and four local LIRGs from the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) at sub-kpc resolutions using VLA high-frequency radio continuum observations. We find that nuclear ring star formation (NRSF) contributes 49 - 60\\% of the total star formation of the LIRGs, compared to 7 - 40\\% for the normal galaxies. We characterize a total of 58 individual star-forming regions in these rings, and find that with measured sizes of 10 - 200 pc, NRSF regions in the LIRGs have SFR and $\\Sigma_\\mathrm{SFR}$ up to 1.7 M$_\\odot$yr$^{-1}$ and 402 M$_\\odot$yr$^{-1}$kpc$^{-2}$, respectively, which are about 10 times higher than NRSF regions in the normal galaxies with similar sizes, and comparable to lensed high-$z$ star-forming regions. At $\\sim 100 - 300$ pc scales, we estimate low contributions ($< 50\\%$) of thermal free-free emission to total radio continuum emission at 33 GHz in the NRSF regions in the LIRGs, but large variations possibly exist at smaller physical scales. Finally, using archival sub-kpc resolution CO (J=1-0) data of nuclear rings in the normal galaxies and NGC 7469 (LIRG), we find a large scatter in gas depletion times at similar molecular gas surface densities, which tentatively points to a multi-modal star formation relation on sub-kpc scales.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2021-07-01T12:47:21.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "nuclear ring star formation",
      "normal galaxies",
      "large array",
      "molecular gas surface densities",
      "high-frequency radio continuum observations"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}