We present an atlas of ultraviolet and infrared images of ∼ 15, 750 local (d 50 Mpc) galaxies, as observed by NASA's WISE and GALEX missions. These maps have matched resolution (FWHM 7.5 and 15 ), matched astrometry, and a common procedure for background removal. We demonstrate that they agree well with resolved intensity measurements and integrated photometry from previous surveys. This atlas represents the first part of a program (the z = 0 Multi-wavelength Galaxy Synthesis) to create a large, uniform database of resolved measurements of gas and dust in nearby galaxies. The images and associated catalogs will be publicly available at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive. This atlas allows us estimate local and integrated star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses (M ) across the local galaxy population in a uniform way. In the appendix, we use the population synthesis fits of Salim et al. (2016Salim et al. ( , 2018 to calibrate integrated M and SFR estimators based on GALEX and WISE. Because they leverage an SDSS-base training set of > 100, 000 galaxies, these calibrations have high precision and allow us to rigorously compare local galaxies to Sloan Digital Sky Survey results. We provide these SFR and M estimates for all galaxies in our sample and show that our results yield a "main sequence" of star forming galaxies comparable to previous work. We also show the distribution of intensities from resolved galaxies in NUV-to-WISE1 vs. WISE1-to-WISE3 space, which captures much of the key physics accessed by these bands.

We measure the velocity dispersion, σ, and surface density, Σ, of the molecular gas in nearby galaxies from CO spectral line cubes with spatial resolution 45-120 pc, matched to the size of individual giant molecular clouds. Combining 11 galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA survey with 4 targets from the literature, we characterize ∼ 30, 000 independent sightlines where CO is detected at good significance. Σ and σ show a strong positive correlation, with the best-fit power law slope close to the expected value for resolved, self-gravitating clouds. This indicates only weak variation in the virial parameter α vir ∝ σ 2 /Σ, which is ∼1.5-3.0 for most galaxies. We do, however, observe enormous variation in the internal turbulent pressure P turb ∝ Σ σ 2 , which spans ∼5 dex across our sample. We find Σ, σ, and P turb to be systematically larger in more massive galaxies. The same quantities appear enhanced in the central kpc of strongly barred galaxies relative to their disks. Based on sensitive maps of M31 and M33, the slope of the σ-Σ relation flattens at Σ 10 M pc −2 , leading to high σ for a given Σ and high apparent α vir . This echoes results found in the Milky Way, and likely originates from a combination of lower beam filling factors and a stronger influence of local environment on the dynamical state of molecular gas in the low density regime.

It remains a major challenge to derive a theory of cloud-scale ( 100 pc) star formation and feedback, describing how galaxies convert gas into stars as a function of the galactic environment. Progress has been hampered by a lack of robust empirical constraints on the giant molecular cloud (GMC) lifecycle. We address this problem by systematically applying a new statistical method for measuring the evolutionary timeline of the GMC lifecycle, star formation, and feedback to a sample of nine nearby disc galaxies, observed as part of the PHANGS-ALMA survey. We measure the spatially-resolved (∼ 100 pc) CO-to-Hα flux ratio and find a universal de-correlation between molecular gas and young stars on GMC scales, allowing us to quantify the underlying evolutionary timeline. GMC lifetimes are short, typically 10−30 Myr, and exhibit environmental variation, between and within galaxies. At kpc-scale molecular gas surface densities Σ H 2 8 M pc −2 , the GMC lifetime correlates with time-scales for galactic dynamical processes, whereas at Σ H 2 8 M pc −2 GMCs decouple from galactic dynamics and live for an internal dynamical time-scale. After a long inert phase without massive star formation traced by Hα (75−90 per cent of the cloud lifetime), GMCs disperse within just 1−5 Myr once massive stars emerge. The dispersal is most likely due to early stellar feedback, causing GMCs to achieve integrated star formation efficiencies of 4−10 per cent. These results show that galactic star formation is governed by cloud-scale, environmentally-dependent, dynamical processes driving rapid evolutionary cycling. GMCs and HII regions are the fundamental units undergoing these lifecycles, with mean separations of 100−300 pc in star-forming discs. Future work should characterise the multi-scale physics and mass flows driving these lifecycles.

We present interferometric CO observations made with the Combined Array for Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) of galaxies from the Extragalactic Database for Galaxy Evolution survey (EDGE). These galaxies are selected from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) sample, mapped with optical integral field spectroscopy. EDGE provides good quality CO data (3σ sensitivitity Σ mol ∼ 11 M pc −2 before inclination correction, resolution ∼ 1.4 kpc) for 126 galaxies, constituting the largest interferometric CO survey of galaxies in the nearby universe. We describe the survey, the data characteristics, the data products, and present initial science results. We find that the exponential scale-lengths of the molecular, stellar, and star-forming disks are approximately equal, and galaxies that are more compact in molecular gas than in stars tend to show signs of interaction. We characterize the molecular to stellar ratio as a function of Hubble type and stellar mass, present preliminary results on the resolved relations between the molecular gas, stars, and star formation rate, and discuss the dependence of the resolved molecular depletion time on stellar surface density, nebular extinction, and gas metallicity. EDGE provides a key dataset to address outstanding topics regarding gas and its role in star formation and galaxy evolution, which will be publicly available on completion of the quality assessment.

We present PHANGS–ALMA, the first survey to map CO J = 2 → 1 line emission at ∼1″ ∼100 pc spatial resolution from a representative sample of 90 nearby (d ≲ 20 Mpc) galaxies that lie on or near the z = 0 “main sequence” of star-forming galaxies. CO line emission traces the bulk distribution of molecular gas, which is the cold, star-forming phase of the interstellar medium. At the resolution achieved by PHANGS–ALMA, each beam reaches the size of a typical individual giant molecular cloud, so that these data can be used to measure the demographics, life cycle, and physical state of molecular clouds across the population of galaxies where the majority of stars form at z = 0. This paper describes the scientific motivation and background for the survey, sample selection, global properties of the targets, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations, and characteristics of the delivered data and derived data products. As the ALMA sample serves as the parent sample for parallel surveys with MUSE on the Very Large Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, AstroSat, the Very Large Array, and other facilities, we include a detailed discussion of the sample selection. We detail the estimation of galaxy mass, size, star formation rate, CO luminosity, and other properties, compare estimates using different systems and provide best-estimate integrated measurements for each target. We also report the design and execution of the ALMA observations, which combine a Cycle 5 Large Program, a series of smaller programs, and archival observations. Finally, we present the first 1″ resolution atlas of CO emission from nearby galaxies and describe the properties and contents of the first PHANGS–ALMA public data release.