Highly turbulent gas on GMC scales in NGC 3256, the nearest luminous infrared galaxy

Brunetti, Nathan; Wilson, C. D.; Sliwa, Kazimierz; Schinnerer, E.; Aalto, S.; Peck, A. B.

doi:10.1093/mnras/staa3425

Cited by 16 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 108 publications

(163 reference statements)

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“…Observations of molecular clouds in our Galaxy and a number of nearby galaxies have identified various empirical trends manifesting such cloud-environment correlations. Within a galaxy, molecular clouds located closer to the galaxy center appear denser, more massive, and more turbulent (e.g., Oka et al 2001;Colombo et al 2014;Freeman et al 2017;Hirota et al 2018;Miura et al 2018;Brunetti et al 2021, also see Heyer & Dame 2015). Similar trends have been found in galaxy-scale numerical simulations (e.g., Pan et al 2015;Jeffreson et al 2020;Treß et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective

Sun

Leroy

Rosolowsky

et al. 2022

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We present a rich, multiwavelength, multiscale database built around the PHANGS–ALMA CO (2 − 1) survey and ancillary data. We use this database to present the distributions of molecular cloud populations and subgalactic environments in 80 PHANGS galaxies, to characterize the relationship between population-averaged cloud properties and host galaxy properties, and to assess key timescales relevant to molecular cloud evolution and star formation. We show that PHANGS probes a wide range of kpc-scale gas, stellar, and star formation rate (SFR) surface densities, as well as orbital velocities and shear. The population-averaged cloud properties in each aperture correlate strongly with both local environmental properties and host galaxy global properties. Leveraging a variable selection analysis, we find that the kpc-scale surface densities of molecular gas and SFR tend to possess the most predictive power for the population-averaged cloud properties. Once their variations are controlled for, galaxy global properties contain little additional information, which implies that the apparent galaxy-to-galaxy variations in cloud populations are likely mediated by kpc-scale environmental conditions. We further estimate a suite of important timescales from our multiwavelength measurements. The cloud-scale freefall time and turbulence crossing time are ∼5–20 Myr, comparable to previous cloud lifetime estimates. The timescales for orbital motion, shearing, and cloud–cloud collisions are longer, ∼100 Myr. The molecular gas depletion time is 1–3 Gyr and shows weak to no correlations with the other timescales in our data. We publish our measurements online, and expect them to have broad utility to future studies of molecular clouds and star formation.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective

Sun

Leroy

Rosolowsky

et al. 2022

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“…In Figure 5, we compare these estimates to the turbulent pressures measured by Sun et al (2018) in local galaxies, as well as the LIRG NGC 3256 (Brunetti et al 2021). The turbulent pressure in the three PSBs is 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than the median P turb measured for gas in the local star-forming disks, and it is >10× higher than found in local star-forming nuclei.…”

Section: Turbulent Pressurementioning

confidence: 89%

“…Comparing the high turbulent pressures found in PSBs to known galaxies. The turbulent pressures (P turb ) in the PSBs 0480, 0570, and 2360 (blue stars) are compared against P turb for the local galaxies from Sun et al (2018) and NGC 3256 (Brunetti et al 2021). Formal uncertainties on P turb for the PSBs are shown, incorporating the measured uncertainties on Σ Mol and σ v .…”

Section: The Star Formation Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

After The Fall: Resolving the Molecular Gas in Post-starburst Galaxies

Smercina

Smith

French

et al. 2022

ApJ

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Post-starburst (PSB), or “E + A,” galaxies represent a rapid transitional phase between major, gas-rich mergers and gas-poor, quiescent, early-type galaxies. Surprisingly, many PSBs have been shown to host a significant interstellar medium (ISM), despite theoretical predictions that the majority of the star-forming gas should be expelled in active galactic nuclei– or starburst-driven outflows. To date, the resolved properties of this surviving ISM have remained unknown. We present high-resolution ALMA continuum and CO(2–1) observations in six gas- and dust-rich PSBs, revealing for the first time the spatial and kinematic structure of their ISM on sub-kpc scales. We find extremely compact molecular reservoirs, with dust and gas surface densities rivaling those found in (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies. We observe spatial and kinematic disturbances in all sources, with some also displaying disk-like kinematics. Estimates of the internal turbulent pressure in the gas exceed those of normal star-forming disks by at least 2 orders of magnitude, and rival the turbulent gas found in local interacting galaxies, such as the Antennae. Though the source of this high turbulent pressure remains uncertain, we suggest that the high incidence of tidal disruption events in PSBs could play a role. The star formation in these PSBs’ turbulent central molecular reservoirs is suppressed, forming stars only 10% as efficiently as starburst galaxies with similar gas surface densities. “The fall” of star formation in these galaxies was not precipitated by complete gas expulsion or redistribution. Rather, this high-resolution view of PSBs’ ISM indicates that star formation in their remaining compact gas reservoirs is suppressed by significant turbulent heating.

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“…The angular resolution and mass detection sensitivity of the NANTEN survey were 45 pc and 10 4 M ⊙ , respectively, which allows us to identify GMCs in terms of studies in the MW-like galaxies. Similar angular resolution studies in LMC/M33 and nearby galaxies with large-aperture single dishes (e.g., Fukui et al 2008;Tosaki et al 2011;Onodera et al 2010Onodera et al , 2012Miura et al 2012;Corbelli et al 2017) and interferometers (e.g., Schinnerer et al 2013;Pety et al 2013;Sun et al 2018;Brunetti et al 2021) discovered more than a few hundred GMCs per galaxies. However, the CO emission in the SMC is remarkably weaker than that in the above galaxies, and thus Mizuno et al (2001) predicted a clumpy CO distribution within the NANTEN beam.…”

Section: Compact Co Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 74%

An Unbiased CO Survey Toward the Northern Region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array. I. Overview: CO Cloud Distributions

Tokuda,

Kondo,

Ohno

et al. 2021

Preprint

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We have analyzed the data from a large-scale CO survey toward the northern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) obtained with the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) stand-alone mode of ALMA. The primary aim of this study is to comprehensively understand the behavior of CO as an H 2 tracer in a low-metallicity environment (Z ∼ 0.2 Z ⊙ ). The total number of mosaic fields is ∼8000, which results in a field coverage of 0.26 degree 2 (∼2.9 ×10 5 pc 2 ), corresponding to ∼10% area of the galaxy. The sensitive ∼2 pc resolution observations reveal the detailed structure of the molecular clouds previously detected in the single-dish NANTEN survey. We have detected a number of compact CO clouds within lower H 2 column density (∼10 20 cm −2 ) regions whose angular scale is similar to the ACA beam size. Most of the clouds in this survey also show peak brightness temperature as low as <1 K, which for optically thick CO emission implies an emission size much smaller than the beam size, leading to beam dilution. The comparison between an available estimation of the total molecular material traced by thermal dust emission and the present CO survey demonstrates that more than ∼90% H 2 gas cannot be traced by the low-J CO emission. Our processed data cubes and 2-D images are publicly available.

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Highly turbulent gas on GMC scales in NGC 3256, the nearest luminous infrared galaxy

Cited by 16 publications

References 108 publications

Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective

Molecular Cloud Populations in the Context of Their Host Galaxy Environments: A Multiwavelength Perspective

After The Fall: Resolving the Molecular Gas in Post-starburst Galaxies

An Unbiased CO Survey Toward the Northern Region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array. I. Overview: CO Cloud Distributions

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