6 research outputs found
Physical Conditions in Molecular Clouds in the Arm and Interarm Regions of M51
We report systematic variations in the emission line ratio of the CO J = 2-1 and J = 1-0 transitions (R_(2-1/1-0)) in the grand-design spiral galaxy M51. The R_(2-1/1-0) ratio shows clear evidence for the evolution of molecular gas from the upstream interarm regions into the spiral arms and back into the downstream interarm regions. In the interarm regions, R_(2-1/1-0) is typically 0.7 (often 0.8-1.0) in the spiral arms, particularly at the leading (downstream) edge of the molecular arms. These trends are similar to those seen in Galactic GMCs with OB star formation (presumably in the Galactic spiral arms). R_(2-1/1-0) is also high, ~0.8-1.0, in the central region of M51. Analysis of the molecular excitation using a Large Velocity Gradient radiative transfer calculation provides insight into the changes in the physical conditions of molecular gas between the arm and interarm regions: cold and low-density gas (≾ 10 K, ≾ 300 cm^(–3)) is required for the interarm GMCs, but this gas must become warmer and/or denser in the more active star-forming spiral arms. The ratio R_(2-1/1-0) is higher in areas of high 24 μm dust surface brightness (which is an approximate tracer of star formation rate surface density) and high CO(1-0) integrated intensity (i.e., a well-calibrated tracer of total molecular gas surface density). The systematic enhancement of the CO(2-1) line relative to CO(1-0) in luminous star-forming regions suggests that some caution is needed when using CO(2-1) as a tracer of bulk molecular gas mass, especially when galactic structures are resolved
CO Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING) IV. Overview of the Project
Observations of the molecular gas in galaxies are vital to understanding the
evolution and star-forming histories of galaxies. However, galaxies with
molecular gas maps of their whole discs having sufficient resolution to
distinguish galactic structures are severely lacking. Millimeter wavelength
studies at a high angular resolution across multiple lines and transitions are
particularly needed, severely limiting our ability to infer the universal
properties of molecular gas in galaxies. Hence, we conducted a legacy project
with the 45 m telescope of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory, called the CO
Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING), which simultaneously observed
147 galaxies with high far-infrared flux in CO, CO, and CO
lines. The total molecular gas mass was derived using the standard
CO-to-H conversion factor and found to be positively correlated with the
total stellar mass derived from the WISE m band data. The fraction of
the total molecular gas mass to the total stellar mass in galaxies does not
depend on their Hubble types nor the existence of a galactic bar, although when
galaxies in individual morphological types are investigated separately, the
fraction seems to decrease with the total stellar mass in early-type galaxies
and vice versa in late-type galaxies. No differences in the distribution of the
total molecular gas mass, stellar mass, and the total molecular gas to stellar
mass ratio was observed between barred and non-barred galaxies, which is likely
the result of our sample selection criteria, in that we prioritized observing
FIR bright (and thus molecular gas-rich) galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ; 47 pages, 5 tables, 29 figures.
On-line supplementary images are available at this URL
(https://astro3.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~radio/coming/publications/). CO data is
available at the Japanese Virtual Observatory (JVO) website
(https://jvo.nao.ac.jp/portal/nobeyama/coming.do) and the project website
(https://astro3.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~radio/coming/data/