No Arabic abstract
The [CII]158um line is one of the dominant cooling lines in star-forming active regions. The commonly assumed clumpy UV-penetrated cloud models predict a [CII] line profile similar to that of CO. However, recent spectral-resolved observations show that they are often very different, indicating a more complex origin of the line emission including the dynamics of the source region. The aim of our study is to investigate the physical properties of the star-forming ISM in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by separating the origin of the emission lines spatially and spectrally. In this paper, we focus on the spectral characteristics and the origin of the emission lines, and the phases of carbon-bearing species in the N159 star-forming region in the LMC. We mapped a 4x(3-4) region in N159 in [CII]158um and [NII]205um with the GREAT on board SOFIA, and in CO(3-2), (4-3), (6-5), 13CO(3-2), and [CI]3P1-3P0 and 3P2-3P1 with APEX. The emission of all transitions observed shows a large variation in the line profiles across the map and between the different species. At most positions the [CII] emission line profile is substantially wider than that of CO and [CI]. We estimated the fraction of the [CII] integrated line emission that cannot be fitted by the CO line profile to be 20%-50%. We derived the relative contribution from C+, C, and CO to the column density in each velocity bin. The contribution from C+ dominates the velocity range far from the velocities traced by the dense molecular gas, and the region located between the CO cores of N159 W and E. We estimate the contribution of the ionized gas to the [CII] emission using the ratio to the [NII] emission to be < 19% to the [CII] emission at its peak position, and <15% over the whole observed region. Using the integrated line intensities, we present the spatial distribution of I([CII])/I(FIR). (abridged for arXiv)
The aim of our study is to investigate the physical properties of the star-forming interstellar medium (ISM) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by separating the origin of the emission lines spatially and spectrally. Following Okada et al. (2015, Paper I), we investigate different phases of the ISM traced by carbon-bearing species in four star-forming regions in the LMC, and model the physical properties using the KOSMA-tau PDR model. We mapped 3--13 arcmin$^2$ areas in 30 Dor, N158, N160 and N159 along the molecular ridge of the LMC in [CII]158um with GREAT on board SOFIA, and in CO(2-1) to (6-5), $^{13}$CO(2-1) and (3-2), [CI]3P1-3P0 and 3P2-3P1 with APEX. In all four star-forming regions, the line profiles of CO, $^{13}$CO, and [CI] emission are similar, whereas [CII] typically shows wider line profiles or an additional velocity component. For selected positions in N159 and 30 Dor, we observed the velocity-resolved [OI] 145um and 63um lines for the first time with upGREAT. At some positions, the [OI] line profiles match those of CO, at other positions they are more similar to the [CII] profiles. We interpret the different line profiles of CO, [CII] and [OI] as contributions from spatially separated clouds and/or clouds in different physical phases, which give different line ratios depending on their physical properties. We model the emission from the CO, [CI], [CII], and [OI] lines and the far-infrared continuum emission using the latest KOSMA-tau PDR model, which treats the dust-related physics consistently and computes the dust continuum SED together with the line emission of the chemical species. We find that the line and continuum emissions are not well-reproduced by a single clump ensemble. Toward the CO peak at N159~W, we propose a scenario that the CO, [CII], and [OI] 63um emission are weaker than expected because of mutual shielding among clumps. (abridged for arXiv)
We have used the KOSMA 3m telescope to map the core 7x5 of the Galactic massive star forming region W3Main in the two fine structure lines of atomic carbon and four mid-J transitions of CO and 13CO. In combination with a map of singly ionized carbon (Howe et al. 1991), and FIR fine structure line data observed by ISO/LWS at the center position, these data sets allow to study in detail the physical structure of the photon dominated cloud interface regions (PDRs) where the occurance of carbon changes from CII to CI, and to CO.
We aim to understand the contribution of the ionized, atomic and molecular phases of the ISM to the [CII] emission from clouds near the dynamical center and the BCLMP302 HII region in the north of the nearby galaxy M33 at a spatial resolution of 50pc. We combine high resolution [CII] spectra taken with the HIFI spectrometer onboard the Herschel satellite with [CII] Herschel-PACS maps and ground-based observations of CO(2-1) and HI. All data are at a common spatial resolution of 50pc. Typically, the [CII] lines have widths intermediate between the narrower CO(2-1) and broader HI line profiles. We decomposed the [CII] spectra in terms of contribution from molecular and atomic gas detected in CO(2-1) and HI, respectively. We find that the relative contribution of molecular and atomic gas traced by CO(2-1) and HI varies depends mostly on the local physical conditions and geometry. We estimate that 11-60% and 5-34% of the [CII] intensities in the center and in BCLMP302, respectively, arise at velocities showing no CO(2-1) or HI emission and could arise in CO-dark molecular gas. The deduced strong variation in the [CII] emission not associated with CO and HI cannot be explained in terms of differences in A_v, far-ultraviolet radiation field, and metallicity between the two studied regions. Hence the relative amounts of diffuse (CO-dark) and dense molecular gas possibly vary on spatial scales smaller than 50pc. Based on the emission measure observed at radio wavelengths we estimate the contribution of ionized gas at a few positions to lie between 10-25%. The correlations between the intensities of tracers corresponding to the same velocity range as [CII], differ from the correlation derived from PACS data. The results in this paper emphasize the need for velocity-resolved observations to discern the contribution of different components of the ISM to [CII] emission. (abridged)
We present the results of high spatial resolution HCO$^{+}$($1-0$) and HCN($1-0$) observations of N55 south region (N55-S) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). N55-S is a relatively less extreme star-forming region of the LMC characterized by a low radiation field. We carried out a detailed analysis of the molecular emission to investigate the relation between dense molecular clumps and star formation in the quiescent environment of N55-S. We detect ten molecular clumps with significant HCO$^{+}(1-0)$ emission and eight with significant HCN($1-0$) emission, and estimate the molecular clump masses by virial and local thermodynamic equilibrium analysis. All identified young stellar objects (YSOs) in the N55-S are found to be near the HCO$^{+}$ and HCN emission peaks showing the association of these clumps with recent star formation activity. The molecular clumps that have associated YSOs show relatively larger linewidths and masses than those without YSOs. We compare the clump properties of the N55-S with those of other giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the LMC and find that N55-S clumps possess similar size but relatively lower linewidth and larger HCN/HCO$^{+}$(1$-$0) flux ratio. These results can be attributed to the low radiation field in N55-S resulted by relatively low star formation activity compared to other active star-forming regions like 30Doradus-10 and N159. The dense gas fraction of N55-S is $sim$ 0.025, lower compared to other GMCs of the LMC supporting the low star formation efficiency of this region.
We compare the CO 2-1 observations against previously taken CO 4-3 observations and analyze the spatial distribution of young stellar objects (YSOs) within the cloud using the Spitzer IRAC observations of the 30 Doradus complex. Both peaks of CO 2-1 and 4-3 emitting clouds coincide with the densest region of the filaments where multiple shells are colliding. We find that the YSOs are clustered in the southern ridge of the warm and dense molecular gas clouds traced by CO J=4-3, indicating a filamentary structure of star formation throughout the 30 Doradus. We also find that some of Class I YSOs candidates which are likely to be associated with a high-velocity component of CO 4-3 emitting clouds are present. This is a bona fide place where the triggered star formation had happened and newly formed stars may have produced such a high-velocity outflow interacting with the surrounding molecular cloud material.