The DiskMass Survey. VIII. On the Relationship between Disk Stability and Star Formation

We study the relationship between the stability level of late-type galaxy disks and their star-formation activity using integral-field gaseous and stellar kinematic data. Specifically, we compare the two-component (gas+stars) stability parameter from Romeo & Wiegert (Q _RW), incorporating stellar kinematic data for the first time, and the star-formation rate estimated from 21 cm continuum emission. We determine the stability level of each disk probabilistically using a Bayesian analysis of our data and a simple dynamical model. Our method incorporates the shape of the stellar velocity ellipsoid (SVE) and yields robust SVE measurements for over 90% of our sample. Averaging over this subsample, we find a meridional shape of \sigma _z/\sigma _R = 0.51^{+0.36}_{-0.25} for the SVE and, at 1.5 disk scale lengths, a stability parameter of Q _RW = 2.0 ± 0.9. We also find that the disk-averaged star-formation-rate surface density (\dot{\Sigma }_{e,\ast }) is correlated with the disk-averaged gas and stellar mass surface densities (Σ _{e, g} and Σ _{e, *}) and anti-correlated with Q _RW. We show that an anti-correlation between \dot{\Sigma }_{e,\ast } and Q _RW can be predicted using empirical scaling relations, such that this outcome is consistent with well-established statistical properties of star-forming galaxies. Interestingly, \dot{\Sigma }_{e,\ast } is not correlated with the gas-only or star-only Toomre parameters, demonstrating the merit of calculating a multi-component stability parameter when comparing to star-formation activity. Finally, our results are consistent with the Ostriker et al. model of self-regulated star-formation, which predicts \dot{\Sigma }_{e,\ast }/\Sigma _{e,g}\propto \Sigma _{e,\ast }^{1/2}. Based on this and other theoretical expectations, we discuss the possibility of a physical link between disk stability level and star-formation rate in light of our empirical results.