135 research outputs found
The Relative Importance of Chlorophyll a, Non-living Suspended and Dissolved Matter and Water to the Vertical Light Attenuation in the North Basin of Lake Biwa
NRO M33 All Disk Survey of Giant Molecular Clouds (NRO MAGiC): I. HI to H_2 Transition
We present the results of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory (NRO) M33 All Disk
(30'x30' or 7.3 kpc x 7.3 kpc) Survey of Giant Molecular Clouds (NRO MAGiC)
based on 12CO (1-0) observations using the NRO 45-m telescope. The spatial
resolution of the resultant map is 19".3, corresponding to 81 pc, which is
sufficient to identify each Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) in the disk. We found
clumpy structures with a typical spatial scale of ~100 pc, corresponding to
GMCs, and no diffuse, smoothly distributed component of molecular gas at this
sensitivity. Closer inspection of the CO and HI maps suggests that not every CO
emission is associated with local HI peaks, particularly in the inner portion
of the disk (r < 2 kpc), although most of CO emission is located at the local
HI peaks in the outer radii. We found that most uncovered GMCs are accompanied
by massive star-forming regions, although the star formation rates (SFRs) vary
widely from cloud to cloud. The azimuthally averaged H{\sc i} gas surface
density exhibits a flat radial distribution. However, the CO radial
distribution shows a significant enhancement within the central 1-2 kpc region,
which is very similar to that of the SFR. We obtained a map of the molecular
fraction, f_mol = Sigma_H_2/(Sigma_HI+Sigma_H_2, at a 100-pc resolution. This
is the first f_mol map covering an entire galaxy with a GMC-scale resolution.
We find that f_mol tends to be high near the center. The correlation between
f_mol and gas surface density shows two distinct sequences. The presence of two
correlation sequences can be explained by differences in metallicity, i.e.,
higher (~ 2-fold) metallicity in the central region (r< 1.5 kpc) than in the
outer parts. Alternatively, differences in scale height can also account for
the two sequences, i.e., increased scale height toward the outer disk.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ, See
http://www.juen.ac.jp/lab/tosaki/paper/astro-ph/2011/tosaki2011.pdf for a
version with full resolution figure
NRO M33 All-Disk Survey of Giant Molecular Clouds (NRO MAGiC): II. Dense Gas Formation within Giant Molecular Clouds in M33
We report the results of our observations of the 12CO (J=1-0) and 12CO
(J=3-2) line emission of 74 major giant molecular clouds (GMCs) within the
galactocentric distance of 5.1 kpc in the Local Group galaxy M33. The
observations have been conducted as part of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory M33
All-disk survey of Giant Molecular Clouds project (NRO MAGiC). The spatial
resolutions are 80 pc for 12CO (J=1-0) and 100 pc for 12CO (J=3-2). We detect
12CO (J=3-2) emission of 65 GMCs successfully. Furthermore, we find that the
correlation between the surface density of the star formation rate, which is
derived from a linear combination of Halpha and 24um emissions, and the 12CO
(J=3-2) integrated intensity still holds at this scale. This result show that
the star-forming activity is closely associated with warm and dense gases that
are traced with the 12CO (J=3-2) line, even in the scale of GMCs. We also find
that the GMCs with a high star-forming activity tend to show a high integrated
intensity ratio (R3-2/1-0). Moreover, we also observe a mass-dependent trend of
R3-2/1-0 for the GMCs with a low star-forming activity. From these results, we
speculate that the R3-2/1-0 values of the GMCs with a low star-forming activity
mainly depend on the dense gas fraction and not on the temperature, and
therefore, the dense gas fraction increases with the mass of GMCs, at least in
the GMCs with a low star-forming activity.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in PASJ, 2012, Vol. 64,
No.
Spatially-resolved Radio-to-Far-infrared SED of the Luminous Merger Remnant NGC 1614 with ALMA and VLA
We present the results of Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA)
108, 233, 352, and 691 GHz continuum observations and Very Large Array (VLA)
4.81 and 8.36 GHz observations of the nearby luminous merger remnant NGC 1614.
By analyzing the beam (1".0 * 1".0) and uv (> 45 k{\lambda}) matched ALMA and
VLA maps, we find that the deconvolved source size of lower frequency emission
(< 108 GHz) is more compact (420 pc * 380 pc) compared to the higher frequency
emission (> 233 GHz) (560 pc * 390 pc), suggesting different physical origins
for the continuum emission. Based on an SED model for a dusty starburst galaxy,
it is found that the SED can be explained by three components, (1) non-thermal
synchrotron emission (traced in the 4.81 and 8.36 GHz continuum), (2) thermal
free-free emission (traced in the 108 GHz continuum), and (3) thermal dust
emission (traced in the 352 and 691 GHz continuum). We also present the
spatially-resolved (sub-kpc scale) Kennicutt-Schmidt relation of NGC 1614. The
result suggests a systematically shorter molecular gas depletion time in NGC
1614 (average {\tau}_gas of 49 - 77 Myr and 70 - 226 Myr at the starburst ring
and the outer region, respectively) than that of normal disk galaxies (~ 2 Gyr)
and a mid-stage merger VV 114 (= 0.1 - 1 Gyr). This implies that the star
formation activities in U/LIRGs are efficiently enhanced as the merger stage
proceeds, which is consistent with the results from high-resolution numerical
merger simulations.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in PAS
ASTE CO(3-2) Observations of the Barred Spiral Galaxy M 83: I. Correlation between CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) Ratios and Star Formation Efficiencies
We present CO(J=3-2) emission observations with the Atacama Submillimeter
Telescope Experiment (ASTE) toward the 5' x 5' (or 6.6 x 6.6 kpc at the
distance D = 4.5 Mpc) region of the nearby barred spiral galaxy M 83. We
successfully resolved the major structures, i.e., the nuclear starburst region,
bar, and inner spiral arms in CO(J=3-2) emission at a resolution of 22'' (or
480 pc), showing a good spatial coincidence between CO(J=3-2) and 6 cm
continuum emissions. We found a global CO(J=3-2) luminosity L'_CO(3-2) of 5.1 x
10^8 K km s^-1 pc^2 within the observed region. We also found L'_CO(3-2) in the
disk region (0.5 < r < 3.5 kpc) of 4.2 x 10^8 K km s^-1 pc^2, indicating that
CO(J=3-2) emission in the disk region significantly contributes to the global
L'_CO(3-2). From a comparison of a CO(J=3-2) data with CO(J=1-0) intensities
measured with Nobeyama 45-m telescope, we found that the radial profile of
CO(J=3-2)/CO(J=1-0) integrated intensity ratio R_3-2/1-0 is almost unity in the
central region (r < 0.25 kpc), whereas it drops to a constant value, 0.6--0.7,
in the disk region. The radial profile of star formation efficiencies (SFEs),
determined from 6 cm radio continuum and CO(J=1-0) emission, shows the same
trend as that of R_3-2/1-0. At the bar-end (r ~ 2.4 kpc), the amounts of
molecular gas and the massive stars are enhanced when compared with other disk
regions, whereas there is no excess of R_3-2/1-0 and SFE in that region. This
means that a simple summation of the star forming regions at the bar-end and
the disk cannot reproduce the nuclear starburst of M 83, implying that the
spatial variation of the dense gas fraction traced by R_3-2/1-0 governs the
spatial variation of SFE in M 83.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, PASJ in press, version with high resolution
figures is available via http://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/~z5001km/m83-aste.pd
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