Extended Data Fig. 6: Influence of the GMC life cycle on the decorrelation of molecular gas and young stellar emission.
From: Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
Shown is the change of the CO-to-Hα flux ratio relative to the galactic average as a function of spatial scale, for apertures placed on CO emission peaks (top branch) and Hα emission peaks (bottom branch). The symbols and 1σ error bars show the CO-to-Hα flux ratios observed across the entire field of view of NGC 300 as in Fig. 1. The evolutionary timeline of the GMC life cycle is constrained by fitting the model indicated by the solid lines. Alternative models with long GMC lifetimes are shown by the dashed and dotted lines (see key). These alternatives are ruled out by the observations.
