ATLASGAL: The HCN-IR Star Formation Relation for the Milky Way

Clicks: 10
ID: 328752
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #1,207 of 1,339 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,339 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract We examine the relation between star formation and dense gas, traced by HCN (1–0), using a sample of 343 Galactic clumps spanning the full range of evolutionary stages representative of high-mass and cluster formation, including quiescent, protostellar, young stellar object (YSO), and H ii regions. Earlier Galactic studies, based primarily on luminous H ii regions, reported a linear correlation between infrared (IR) and HCN luminosities, consistent with extragalactic surveys, and interpreted it as a universal star formation law. Our larger evolutionary sample yields a significantly steeper slope of 1.80 ± 0.08, inconsistent with extragalactic trends. However, we find that each of the star-forming evolutionary stages individually has a shallower slope (~1.2) than that of the full sample, with quiescent clumps showing no correlation. We estimate the Milky Way’s total IR and HCN luminosities from dense clumps by integrating the bolometric luminosities and clump masses of Hi-GAL sources. Both fall significantly below extragalactic values, demonstrating that clumps alone cannot account for the IR–HCN relation. Only ~5–25 percnt of Galactic HCN luminosity arises from dense clumps, implying that most extragalactic HCN traces gas that is not involved in star formation. Additionally, dense clumps contribute only ~2–3 percnt of the Milky Way’s IR luminosity, which is dominated instead by extended H ii regions and PDRs tracing longer star formation timescales. As a result, the observed linear relation in nearby galaxies reflects a nearly constant star formation efficiency averaged over large areas and long timescales, rather than a direct link between SFR and dense gas mass.
Reference Key
openalex_W7213425420 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Ivana I. Grozdanova, J. S. Urquhart, W-J Kim, F Wyrowski, T Csengeri, A Karska, A Giannetti, D Colombo, David Eden, M A Thompson, T J T Moore
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1755
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1755
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.