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Register a new userDense molecular gas properties on 100 pc scales across the disc of NGC 3627
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Added by
Ivana Be\\v{s}li\\'c
Publication date
2021
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
I. Bev{s}lic
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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.
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We present a 190-307 GHz broadband spectrum obtained with Z-Spec of NGC 1068 with new measurements of molecular rotational transitions. After combining our measurements with those previously published and considering the specific geometry of this Seyfert 2 galaxy, we conduct a multi-species Bayesian likelihood analysis of the density, temperature, and relative molecular abundances of HCN, HNC, CS, and HCO+. We find that these molecules trace warm (T > 100 K) gas of H2 number densities 10^4.2 - 10^4.9 cm^-3. Our models also place strong constraints on the column densities and relative abundances of these molecules, as well as on the total mass in the circumnuclear disk. Using the uniform calibration afforded by the broad Z-Spec bandpass, we compare our line ratios to X-ray dominated region (XDR) and photon-dominated region models. The majority of our line ratios are consistent with the XDR models at the densities indicated by the likelihood analysis, lending substantial support to the emerging interpretation that the energetics in the circumnuclear disk of NGC 1068 are dominated by accretion onto an active galactic nucleus.
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