The ALMaQUEST Survey: The molecular gas main sequence and the origin of
  the star forming main sequence
  The origin of the star forming main sequence ( i.e., the relation between
star formation rate and stellar mass, globally or on kpc-scales; hereafter
SFMS) remains a hotly debated topic in galaxy evolution. Using the ALMA-MaNGA
QUEnching and STar formation (ALMaQUEST) survey, we show that for star forming
spaxels in the main sequence galaxies, the three local quantities,
star-formation rate surface density (\sigsfr), stellar mass surface density
(\sigsm), and the \h2~mass surface density (\sigh2), are strongly correlated
with one another and form a 3D linear (in log) relation with dispersion. In
addition to the two well known scaling relations, the resolved SFMS (\sigsfr~
vs. \sigsm) and the Schmidt-Kennicutt relation (\sigsfr~ vs. \sigh2; SK
relation), there is a third scaling relation between \sigh2~ and \sigsm, which
we refer to as the `molecular gas main sequence' (MGMS). The latter indicates
that either the local gas mass traces the gravitational potential set by the
local stellar mass or both quantities follow the underlying total mass
distributions. The scatter of the resolved SFMS ($\sigma \sim 0.25$ dex) is the
largest compared to those of the SK and MGMS relations ($\sigma \sim$ 0.2 dex).
A Pearson correlation test also indicates that the SK and MGMS relations are
more strongly correlated than the resolved SFMS. Our result suggests a scenario
in which the resolved SFMS is the least physically fundamental and is the
consequence of the combination of the SK and the MGMS relations.
