No Arabic abstract
We used high-spatial resolution (70 pc; 0.3) CO multi-transition (1-0, 2-1, 4-3, and 6-5) ALMA data to study the physical conditions and kinematics of the cold molecular outflow in the local LIRG ESO320-G030 (d=48 Mpc, log LIR/Lsun=11.3). ESO320-G030 is a double-barred isolated spiral, but its compact and obscured nuclear starburst (SFR~15 Msun/yr; Av~40 mag) resembles those of more luminous ULIRGs. In the outflow, the 1-0/2-1 ratio is enhanced with respect to the rest of the galaxy and the CO(4-3) transition is undetected. This indicates that the outflowing molecular gas is less excited than the gas in the nuclear starburst (launching site) and the galaxy disk. Non-LTE radiative transfer modeling reveals that the properties of the outflow molecular clouds differ from those of the nuclear and disk clouds: The kinetic temperature is lower (~9 K) in the outflow, and the outflowing clouds have lower column densities. Assuming a 10^-4 CO abundance, the large internal velocity gradients, 60^+250_-45 km/s/pc, imply that the outflowing molecular clouds are not bound by self-gravity. All this suggests that the life-cycle (formation, collapse, dissipation) of the disk clouds might differ from that of the outflowing clouds which might not be able to form stars. The low Tkin of the molecular outflow remains constant up to 1.7 kpc. This indicates that the heating by the hotter ionized outflow phase is not efficient and may favor the survival of the outflow molecular phase. The velocity structure of the outflow shows a 0.8 km/s/pc velocity gradient between 190-560 pc and then a constant maximum velocity (~750 km/s) up to 1.7 kpc. This is compatible with a pure gravitational evolution of the outflow under certain mass outflow rate and launching velocity variations. Alternatively, ram pressure acceleration and cloud evaporation could explain the observed kinematics and size of the molecular phase.
We analyze new high spatial resolution (~60 pc) ALMA CO(2-1) observations of the isolated luminous infrared galaxy ESO 320-G030 (d=48 Mpc) in combination with ancillary HST optical and near-IR imaging as well as VLT/SINFONI near-IR integral field spectroscopy. We detect a high-velocity (~450 km/s) spatially resolved (size~2.5 kpc; dynamical time ~3 Myr) massive (~10^7 Msun; mass rate~2-8 Msun/yr) molecular outflow originated in the central ~250 pc. We observe a clumpy structure in the outflowing cold molecular gas with clump sizes between 60 and 150 pc and masses between 10^5.5 and 10^6.4 Msun. The mass of the clumps decreases with increasing distance, while the velocity is approximately constant. Therefore, both the momentum and kinetic energy of the clumps decrease outwards. In the innermost (~100 pc) part of the outflow, we measure a hot-to-cold molecular gas ratio of 7x10^-5, which is similar to that measured in other resolved molecular outflows. We do not find evidence of an ionized phase in this outflow. The nuclear IR and radio properties are compatible with strong and highly obscured star-formation (A_k ~ 4.6 mag; SFR~15 Msun/yr). We do not find any evidence for the presence of an active galactic nucleus. We estimate that supernova explosions in the nuclear starburst ( u(SN) ~ 0.2 yr^-1) can power the observed molecular outflow. The kinetic energy and radial momentum of the cold molecular phase of the outflow correspond to about 2% and 20%, respectively, of the supernovae output. The cold molecular outflow velocity is lower than the escape velocity, so the gas will likely return to the galaxy disk. The mass loading factor is ~0.1-0.5, so the negative feedback due to this star-formation powered molecular outflow is probably limited.
We present a two-dimensional mapping of stellar population age components, emission-line fluxes, gas excitation and kinematics within the inner $sim200$ pc of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 2110. We used the Gemini North Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) in the J and K bands at a spatial resolution of $sim22$ pc. The unresolved nuclear continuum is originated in combined contributions of young stellar population (SP; age$leq100$ Myr), a featureless AGN continuum and hot dust emission. The young-intermediate SP ($100<$age$leq700$ Myr) is distributed in a ring-shaped structure at $approx140$ pc from the nucleus, which is roughly coincident with the lowest values of the stellar velocity dispersion. In the inner $approx115$ pc the old SP (age$>2$ Gyr) is dominant. The [FeII]1.25$mu$m emission-line flux distribution is correlated with the radio emission and its kinematics comprise two components, one from gas rotating in the galaxy plane and another from gas in outflow within a bicone oriented along north-south. These outflows seem to originate in the interaction of the radio jet with the ambient gas producing shocks that are the main excitation mechanism of the [FeII] emission. We estimate: (1) an ionized gas mass outflow rate of $sim0.5$ M$_odot$/yr at $sim$70 pc from the nucleus; and (2) a kinetic power for the outflow of only 0.05% of the AGN bolometric luminosity implying weak feedback effect on the galaxy.
The structure of molecular clouds (MCs) holds important clues on the physical processes that lead to their formation and subsequent evolution. While it is well established that turbulence imprints a self-similar structure to the clouds, other processes, such as gravity and stellar feedback, can break their scale-free nature. The break of self-similarity can manifest itself in the existence of characteristic scales that stand out from the underlying structure generated by turbulent motions. We investigate the structure of the Cygnus-X North and the Polaris MCs which represent two extremes in terms of their star formation activity. We characterize the structure of the clouds using the delta-variance ($Delta$-variance) spectrum. In Polaris, the structure of the cloud is self-similar over more than one order of magnitude in spatial scales. In contrast, the $Delta$-variance spectrum of Cygnus-X exhibits an excess and a plateau on physical scales of ~0.5-1.2 pc. In order to explain the observations for Cygnus-X, we use synthetic maps in which we overlay populations of discrete structures on top of a fractal Brownian motion (fBm) image. The properties of these structures such as their major axis sizes, aspect ratios, and column density contrasts are randomly drawn from parameterized distribution functions. We show that it is possible to reproduce a $Delta$-variance spectrum that resembles the one of the Cygnus-X cloud. We also use a reverse engineering approach in which we extract the compact structures in the Cygnus-X cloud and re-inject them on an fBm map. The calculated $Delta$-variance using this approach deviates from the observations and is an indication that the range of characteristic scales observed in Cygnus-X is not only due to the existence of compact sources, but is a signature of the whole population of structures, including more extended and elongated structures
It is still poorly constrained how the densest phase of the interstellar medium varies across galactic environment. A large observing time is required to recover significant emission from dense molecular gas at high spatial resolution, and to cover a large dynamic range of extragalactic disc environments. We present new NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) observations of a range of high critical density molecular tracers (HCN, HNC, HCO+) and CO isotopologues (13CO, C18O) towards the nearby (11.3 Mpc), strongly barred galaxy NGC 3627. These observations represent the current highest angular resolution (1.85; 100 pc) map of dense gas tracers across a disc of a nearby spiral galaxy, which we use here to assess the properties of the dense molecular gas, and their variation as a function of galactocentric radius, molecular gas, and star formation. We find that the HCN(1-0)/CO(2-1) integrated intensity ratio does not correlate with the amount of recent star formation. Instead, the HCN(1-0)/CO(2-1) ratio depends on the galactic environment, with differences between the galaxy centre, bar, and bar end regions. The dense gas in the central 600 pc appears to produce stars less efficiently despite containing a higher fraction of dense molecular gas than the bar ends where the star formation is enhanced. In assessing the dynamics of the dense gas, we find the HCN(1-0) and HCO+(1-0) emission lines showing multiple components towards regions in the bar ends that correspond to previously identified features in CO emission. These features are co-spatial with peaks of Halpha emission, which highlights that the complex dynamics of this bar end region could be linked to local enhancements in the star formation.
Using APEX-1 and APEX-2 observations, we have detected and studied the rotational lines of the HC$_3$N molecule (cyanoacetylene) in the powerful outflow/hot molecular core G331.512-0.103. We identified thirty-one rotational lines at $J$ levels between 24 and 39; seventeen of them in the ground vibrational state $v$=0 (9 lines corresponding to the main C isotopologue and 8 lines corresponding to the $^{13}$C isotopologues), and fourteen in the lowest vibrationally excited state $v_7$=1. Using LTE-based population diagrams for the beam-diluted $v$=0 transitions, we determined $T_{rm exc}$=85$pm$4 K and $N$(HC$_3$N)=(6.9$pm$0.8)$times$10$^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$, while for the beam-diluted $v_7$=1 transitions we obtained $T_{rm exc}$=89$pm$10 K and $N$(HC$_3$N)=2$pm$1$times$10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$. Non-LTE calculations using H$_2$ collision rates indicate that the HC$_3$N emission is in good agreement with LTE-based results. From the non-LTE method we estimated $T_{rm kin}$ $simeq$90~K, $n$(H$_2$)$simeq$2$times$10$^7$~cm$^{-3}$ for a central core of 6 arcsec in size. A vibrational temperature in the range from 130~K to 145~K was also determined, values which are very likely lower limits. Our results suggest that rotational transitions are thermalized, while IR radiative pumping processes are probably more efficient than collisions in exciting the molecule to the vibrationally excited state $v_7$=1. Abundance ratios derived under LTE conditions for the $^{13}$C isotopologues suggest that the main formation pathway of HC$_3$N is ${rm C}_2{rm H}_2 + {rm CN} rightarrow {rm HC}_3{rm N} + {rm H}$.