Molecular Gas and Star Formation at Low Metallicity in the Magellanic Clouds

The Magellanic Clouds are two interacting, gas-rich, star-forming, low-mass, nearby satellite galaxies of the Milky Way that afford a unique view of low-metallicty star-forming regions, providing the nearest laboratories to study processes relevant to star formation in the early universe. We use the dust emission from HERITAGE Herschel data to map the molecular gas in the Magellanic Clouds, avoiding the known biases of CO emission as a tracer of H2. On small (~ few pc) scales in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), we study the effect of metallicity on the structure of photodissociation regions in the outskirts of molecular clouds using [CII] and [OI] spectroscopy combined with new ALMA 7-m array maps of 12CO and 13CO. We estimate the total amount of molecular gas using [CII] to trace H2 at low-Av and 12CO to trace H2 at high-Av. We find that most of the molecular gas is traced by [CII] emission and that metallicity only affects the relationship between 12CO emission and molecular gas through changes in Av. Using mid-infrared spectroscopy from Spitzer Space Telescope in the SMC, we model the H2 rotational line emission to estimate temperatures, column densities, and fractions of warm H2 gas (T>100 K). The temperatures and column densities of warm H2 gas are similar to nearby galaxies, but the SMC shows somewhat high fractions of warm H2. The properties of the warm H2 gas indicate that it is located in photodissociation regions that are more extended in the low metallicity environment of the SMC. We use dust-based molecular gas maps data to evaluate molecular depletion time scales as a function of spatial scale. We compare galaxy-scale analytic star formation models to our observations and find that successfully predicting the trends in the low metallicity environment needs the inclusion of a diffuse neutral medium. The analytic models, however, do not capture the scatter observed, which computer simulations suggest is driven primarily by the time-averaging effect of star formation rate tracers. The averaging of the scatter in the molecular gas depletion time as a function of scale size suggests that the drivers of the star formation process in these galaxies operate on large scales

The Relationship Between Molecular Gas, HI, and Star Formation in the Low-Mass, Low-Metallicity Magellanic Clouds

The Magellanic Clouds provide the only laboratory to study the effect of metallicity and galaxy mass on molecular gas and star formation at high (~20 pc) resolution. We use the dust emission from HERITAGE Herschel data to map the molecular gas in the Magellanic Clouds, avoiding the known biases of CO emission as a tracer of H$_{2}$. Using our dust-based molecular gas estimates, we find molecular gas depletion times of ~0.4 Gyr in the LMC and ~0.6 SMC at 1 kpc scales. These depletion times fall within the range found for normal disk galaxies, but are shorter than the average value, which could be due to recent bursts in star formation. We find no evidence for a strong intrinsic dependence of the molecular gas depletion time on metallicity. We study the relationship between gas and star formation rate across a range in size scales from 20 pc to ~1 kpc, including how the scatter in molecular gas depletion time changes with size scale, and discuss the physical mechanisms driving the relationships. We compare the metallicity-dependent star formation models of Ostriker, McKee, and Leroy (2010) and Krumholz (2013) to our observations and find that they both predict the trend in the data, suggesting that the inclusion of a diffuse neutral medium is important at lower metallicity.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. FITS files of the dust-based estimates of the H2 column densities for the LMC and SMC (shown in Figures 2 and 3) will be available online through Ap

Cold gas outflows from the Small Magellanic Cloud traced with ASKAP

Feedback from massive stars plays a critical role in the evolution of the Universe by driving powerful outflows from galaxies that enrich the intergalactic medium and regulate star formation. An important source of outflows may be the most numerous galaxies in the Universe: dwarf galaxies. With small gravitational potential wells, these galaxies easily lose their star-forming material in the presence of intense stellar feedback. Here, we show that the nearby dwarf galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), has atomic hydrogen outflows extending at least 2 kiloparsecs (kpc) from the star-forming bar of the galaxy. The outflows are cold, $T<400~{\rm K}$, and may have formed during a period of active star formation $25 - 60$ million years (Myr) ago. The total mass of atomic gas in the outflow is $\sim 10^7$ solar masses, ${\rm M_{\odot}}$, or $\sim 3$% of the total atomic gas of the galaxy. The inferred mass flux in atomic gas alone, $\dot{M}_{HI}\sim 0.2 - 1.0~{\rm M_{\odot}~yr^{-1}}$, is up to an order of magnitude greater than the star formation rate. We suggest that most of the observed outflow will be stripped from the SMC through its interaction with its companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and the Milky Way, feeding the Magellanic Stream of hydrogen encircling the Milky Way.Comment: Published in Nature Astronomy, 29 October 2018, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0608-

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOLECULAR GAS, H I, AND STAR FORMATION IN THE LOW-MASS, LOW-METALLICITY MAGELLANIC CLOUDS

The Magellanic Clouds provide the only laboratory to study the effects of metallicity and galaxy mass on molecular gas and star formation at high (∼20 pc) resolution. We use the dust emission from HERITAGE Herschel data to map the molecular gas in the Magellanic Clouds, avoiding the known biases of CO emission as a tracer of . Using our dust-based molecular gas estimates, we find molecular gas depletion times () of ∼0.4 Gyr in the Large Magellanic Cloud and ∼0.6 in the Small Magellanic Cloud at 1 kpc scales. These depletion times fall within the range found for normal disk galaxies, but are shorter than the average value, which could be due to recent bursts in star formation. We find no evidence for a strong intrinsic dependence of the molecular gas depletion time on metallicity. We study the relationship between the gas and the star formation rate across a range of size scales from 20 pc to ≥1 kpc, including how the scatter in changes with the size scale, and discuss the physical mechanisms driving the relationships. We compare the metallicity-dependent star formation models of Ostriker et al. and Krumholz to our observations and find that they both predict the trend in the data, suggesting that the inclusion of a diffuse neutral medium is important at lower metallicit