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- Saldaño, H. P., et al.
(författare)
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SuperCAM CO(3-2) APEX survey at a 6 pc resolution in the Small Magellanic Clouds
- 2024
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 687
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is an ideal laboratory for studying the properties of star-forming regions thanks to its low metallicity, which has an impact on the molecular gas abundance. However, a small number of molecular gas surveys of the entire galaxy have been carried out in the last few years, limiting the measurements of interstellar medium (ISM) properties in a homogeneous manner. Aims. We present the CO(3-2) APEX survey at a 6 pc resolution of the bar of the SMC, observed with the SuperCAM receiver attached to the APEX telescope. This high-resolution survey has allowed us to study certain properties of the ISM and to identify CO clouds in the innermost parts of the H2 envelopes. Methods. We adopted the CO analysis in the SMC bar comparing the CO(3-2) survey with that of the CO(2-1) of a similar resolution. We studied the CO(3-2)-To-CO(2-1) ratio (R32), which is very sensitive to the environment properties (e.g., star-forming regions). We analyzed the correlation of this ratio with observational quantities that trace the star formation such as the local CO emission, the Spitzer color [70/160], and the total IR surface brightness measured from the Spitzer and Herschel bands. For the identification of the CO(3-2) clouds, we used the CPROPS algorithm, which allowed us to measure the physical properties of the clouds. We analyzed the scaling relationships of such physical properties. Results. We obtained R32 = 0.65 ± 0.02 for the SW bar and a slightly higher ratio, R32 = 0.7 ± 0.1, for N66 in the SMC. We found that R32 varies from region to region, depending on the star formation activity. In regions dominated by HII and photo-dissociated regions (e.g., N22, N66) R32 tends to be higher than the median values. Meanwhile, lower values were found toward quiescent clouds. We also found that R32 is correlated with the IR color [70/160] and the total IR surface brightness. This finding indicates that R32 increases with environmental properties, such as the dust temperature, total gas density, and radiation field. We identified 225 molecular clouds with sizes of R > 1.5 pc and signal-To-noise ratios (S/N) of >3, of which only 17 are well resolved CO(3-2) clouds with S/N 5. These 17 clouds follow consistent scaling relationships to the inner Milky Way clouds but with some departures. For instance, CO(3-2) tends to be less turbulent and less luminous than the inner Milky Way clouds of similar sizes. Finally, we estimated a median virial-based CO(3-2)-To-H2 conversion factor of 12.6-7+10 M-(K km s-1 pc2)-1 for the total sample.
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2. |
- Stanke, T., et al.
(författare)
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The APEX Large CO Heterodyne Orion Legacy Survey (ALCOHOLS): I. Survey overview
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 658
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. The Orion molecular cloud complex harbours the nearest Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) and the nearest site of high-mass star formation. Its young star and protostar populations are thoroughly characterized. The region is therefore a prime target for the study of star formation. Aims. Here, we verify the performance of the SuperCAM 64 pixel heterodyne array on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX). We give a descriptive overview of a set of wide-field CO(32) spectral line cubes obtained towards the Orion GMC complex, aimed at characterizing the dynamics and structure of the extended molecular gas in diverse regions of the clouds, ranging from very active sites of clustered star formation in Orion B to comparatively quiet regions in southern Orion A. In a future publication, we will characterize the full population of protostellar outflows and their feedback over an entire GMC. Methods. We present a 2.7 square degree (130 pc2) mapping survey in the 12CO(32) transition, obtained using SuperCAM on APEX at an angular resolution of 19 (7600 AU or 0.037 pc at a distance of 400 pc), covering the main sites of star formation in the Orion B cloud (L 1622, NGC 2071, NGC 2068, Ori B9, NGC 2024, and NGC 2023), and a large patch in the southern part of the L 1641 cloud in Orion A. Results. We describe CO integrated line emission and line moment maps and position-velocity diagrams for all survey fields and discuss a few sub-regions in some detail. Evidence for expanding bubbles is seen with lines splitting into double components, often in areas of optical nebulosities, most prominently in the NGC 2024 H II region, where we argue that the bulk of the molecular gas is in the foreground of the H II region. High CO(32)/CO(10) line ratios reveal warm CO along the western edge of the Orion B cloud in the NGC 2023 & NGC 2024 region facing the IC 434 H II region. We see multiple, well separated radial velocity cloud components towards several fields and propose that L 1641-S consists of a sequence of clouds at increasingly larger distances. We find a small, seemingly spherical cloud, which we term Cow Nebula globule, north of NGC 2071. We confirm that we can trace high velocity line wings out to the extremely high velocity regime in protostellar molecular outflows for the NGC 2071-IR outflow and the NGC 2024 CO jet, and identify the protostellar dust core FIR4 (rather than FIR5) as the true driving source of the NGC 2024 monopolar outflow.
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- Walker, Christopher K., et al.
(författare)
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Orbiting Astronomical Satellite for Investigating Stellar Systems (OASIS): “Following water from galaxies, through protostellar systems, to oceans”
- 2021
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Ingår i: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. - : SPIE. - 0277-786X .- 1996-756X. ; 11820
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Orbiting Astronomical Satellite for Investigating Stellar Systems (OASIS) is a space-based, MIDEX-class mission concept that employs a 17-meter diameter inflatable aperture with cryogenic heterodyne receivers, enabling high sensitivity and high spectral resolution (resolving power >106) observations at terahertz frequencies. OASIS science is targeting submillimeter and far-infrared transitions of H2O and its isotopologues, as well as deuterated molecular hydrogen (HD) and other molecular species from 660 to 80 µm, which are inaccessible to ground-based telescopes due to the opacity of Earth’s atmosphere. OASIS will have >20x the collecting area and ~5x the angular resolution of Herschel, and it complements the shorter wavelength capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope. With its large collecting area and suite of terahertz heterodyne receivers, OASIS will have the sensitivity to follow the water trail from galaxies to oceans, as well as directly measure gas mass in a wide variety of astrophysical objects from observations of the ground-state HD line. OASIS will operate in a Sun-Earth L1 halo orbit that enables observations of large numbers of galaxies, protoplanetary systems, and solar system objects during the course of its 1-year baseline mission. OASIS embraces an overarching science theme of “following water from galaxies, through protostellar systems, to oceans.” This theme resonates with the NASA Astrophysics Roadmap and the 2010 Astrophysics Decadal Survey, and it is also highly complementary to the proposed Origins Space Telescope’s objectives.
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