Quillen et al. presented an imaging survey with the Spitzer Space Telescope of 62 brightest cluster galaxies with optical line emission located in the cores of X-ray-luminous clusters. They found that at least half of these sources have signs of excess IR emission. Here we discuss the nature of the IR emission and its implications for cool core clusters. The strength of the mid-IR excess emission correlates with the luminosity of the optical emission lines. Excluding the four systems dominated by an AGN, the excess mid-IR emission in the remaining brightest cluster galaxies is likely related to star formation. The mass of molecular gas (estimated from CO observations) is correlated with the IR luminosity as found for normal star-forming galaxies. The gas depletion timescale is about 1 Gyr. The physical extent of the IR excess is consistent with that of the optical emission-line nebulae. This supports the hypothesis that star formation occurs in molecular gas associated with the emission-line nebulae and with evidence that the emission-line nebulae are mainly powered by ongoing star formation. We find a correlation between mass deposition rates (Ṁ X ) estimated from the X-ray emission and the star formation rates estimated from the IR luminosity. The star formation rates are 1/10 to 1/100 of the mass deposition rates, suggesting that the reheating of the intracluster medium is generally very effective in reducing the amount of mass cooling from the hot phase but not eliminating it completely.

We present an analysis of O I 63 [ ] , [O III] 88 , [N II] 122 , and C II 158 [ ] far-infrared (FIR) fine-structure line observations obtained with Herschel/PACS, for ∼240 local luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) in the Great Observatories Allsky LIRG Survey. We find pronounced declines ("deficits") of line-to-FIR continuum emission for [ ] is not optically thick or self-absorbed. For each galaxy, we derive the average PDR hydrogen density, n H , and intensity of the interstellar radiation field, G, in units of G 0 and find G/n H ratios of ∼0.1-50 G 0 cm 3 , with ULIRGs populating the upper end of the distribution. There is a relation between G/n H and IR

We present the highest spatial resolution (≈0. 5) CO (3-2) observations to date of the "overlap" region in the merging Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038/39), taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We report on the discovery of a long (3 kpc), thin (aspect ratio 30/1), filament of CO gas that breaks up into roughly 10 individual knots. Each individual knot has a low internal velocity dispersion (≈10 km s −1 ); the dispersion of the ensemble of knots in the filament is also low (≈10 km s −1 ). At the other extreme, we find that the individual clouds in the supergiant molecular cloud 2 region discussed by Wilson and collaborators have a large range of internal velocity dispersions (10 to 80 km s −1 ), and a large dispersion among the ensemble (≈80 km s −1 ). Other large-scale features observed in CO emission, and their correspondence with historical counterparts using observations in other wavelengths, are also discussed. We compare the locations of small-scale CO features with a variety of multiwavelength observations, in particular broad-(BVIJH) and narrow-band data (H α and Pa β ) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, and radio (3.6 cm) continuum observations taken with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. This comparison leads to the development of an evolutionary classification system that provides a framework for studying the sequence of star cluster formation and evolution-from diffuse supergiant molecular clouds (SGMCs) to proto, embedded, emerging, young, intermediate/old clusters. The relative timescales have been assessed by determining the fractional population of sources at each evolutionary stage. The main uncertainty in this estimate is the identification of four regions as candidate protoclusters (i.e., strong compact CO emission but no clearly associated radio emission). Using the evolutionary framework, we estimate that the maximum age range of clusters in a single GMC is ≈10 Myr, which suggests that the molecular gas is removed over this timescale, resulting in the cessation of star formation and the destruction of the GMC within a radius of about 200 pc.

Mergers of galaxies are thought to cause significant gas inflows to the inner parsecs, which can activate rapid accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs), giving rise to Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). During a significant fraction of this process, SMBHs are predicted to be enshrouded by gas and dust. Studying 52 galactic nuclei in infrared-selected local Luminous and Ultra-luminous infrared galaxies in different merger stages in the hard X-ray band, where radiation is less affected by absorption, we find that the amount of material around SMBHs increases during the last phases of the merger. We find that the fraction of Compton-thick (CT, N H 10 24 cm −2 ) AGN in late merger galaxies is higher (f CT = 65 +12 −13 %) than in local hard X-ray selected AGN (f CT = 27 ± 4%), and that obscuration reaches its maximum when the nuclei of the two merging galaxies are at a projected distance of D 12 ≃ 0.4 − 10.8 kiloparsecs (f CT = 77 +13 −17 %). We also find that all AGN of our sample in late merger galaxies have N H > 10 23 cm −2 , which implies that the obscuring material covers 95 +4 −8 % of the X-ray source. These observations show that the material is most effectively funnelled from the galactic scale to the inner tens of parsecs during the late stages of galaxy mergers, and that the close environment of SMBHs in advanced mergers is richer in gas and dust with respect to that of SMBHs in isolated galaxies, and cannot be explained by the classical AGN unification model in which the torus is responsible for the obscuration.