2012AJ....144....3L

Using combinations of Hα, ultraviolet (UV), and infrared (IR) emission, we estimate the star formation rate (SFR) surface density, Σ_SFR, at 1 kpc resolution for 30 disk galaxies that are targets of the IRAM HERACLES CO survey. We present a new physically motivated IR spectral-energy-distribution-based approach to account for possible contributions to 24 µm emission not associated with recent star formation. Considering a variety of "reference" SFRs from the literature, we revisit the calibration of the 24 µm term in hybrid (UV+IR or Hα+IR) tracers. We show that the overall calibration of this term remains uncertain at the factor of two level because of the lack of wide-field, robust reference SFR estimates. Within this uncertainty, published calibrations represent a reasonable starting point for 1 kpc-wide areas of star-forming disk galaxies, but we re-derive and refine the calibration of the IR term in these tracers to match our resolution and approach to 24 µm emission. We compare a large suite of Σ_SFR estimates and find that above Σ_SFR∼ 10^–3 M_☉/yr/kpc2 the systematic differences among tracers are less than a factor of two across two orders of magnitude dynamic range. We caution that methodology and data both become serious issues below this level. We note from simple model considerations that when focusing on a part of a galaxy dominated by a single stellar population, the intrinsic uncertainty in Hα- and FUV-based SFRs is ∼0.3 and ∼0.5 dex.