Characterizing spiral arm and interarm star formation
  Interarm star formation contributes significantly to a galaxy's star
formation budget, and provides an opportunity to study stellar birthplaces
unperturbed by spiral arm dynamics. Using optical integral field spectroscopy
of the nearby galaxy NGC 628 with VLT/MUSE, we construct Halpha maps including
detailed corrections for dust extinction and stellar absorption to identify 391
HII regions at 35pc resolution over 12 kpc^2. Using tracers sensitive to the
underlying gravitational potential, we associate HII regions with either arm
(271) or interarm (120) environments. Using our full spectral coverage of each
region, we find that most HII region physical properties (luminosity, size,
metallicity, ionization parameter) are independent of environment. We calculate
the fraction of Halpha luminosity due to the diffuse ionized gas (DIG)
background contaminating each HII region, and find the DIG surface brightness
to be higher within HII regions compared to the surroundings, and slightly
higher within arm HII regions. Use of the temperature sensitive [SII]/Halpha
line ratio map instead of the Halpha surface brightness to identify HII region
boundaries does not change this result. Using the dust attenuation as a tracer
of the gas, we find depletion times consistent with previous work (2 x 10^9 yr)
with no differences between the arm and interarm, however this is very
sensitive to the DIG correction. Unlike molecular clouds, which can be
dynamically affected by the galactic environment, we see fairly consistent HII
region properties in both arm and interarm environments. This suggests either a
difference in arm star formation and feedback, or a decoupling of dense star
forming clumps from the more extended surrounding molecular gas.
