| 1. |
- Lutz, D., et al.
(author)
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Molecular outflows in local galaxies: Method comparison and a role of intermittent AGN driving
- 2020
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 633
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We report new detections and limits from a NOEMA and ALMA CO(1-0) search for molecular outflows in 13 local galaxies with high far-infrared surface brightness, and combine these with local universe CO outflow results from the literature. The CO line ratios and spatial outflow structure of our targets provide some constraints on the conversion steps from observables to physical quantities such as molecular mass outflow rates. Where available, ratios between outflow emission in higher J CO transitions and in CO(1-0) are typically consistent with excitation R-i1 less than or similar to 1. However, for IRAS 13120 5453, R-31 = 2.10 +/- 0.29 indicates optically thin CO in the outflow. Like much of the outflow literature, we use ff CO(1 0) = 0.8, and we present arguments for using C = 1 in deriving molecular mass outflow rates. (M)over dot(out) = CM(out)v(out)/R-out. We compare the two main methods for molecular outflow detection: CO millimeter interferometry and Herschel OH-based spectroscopic outflow searches. For 26 sources studied with both methods, we find an 80% agreement in detecting vout & 150 km s 1 outflows, and non-matches can be plausibly ascribed to outflow geometry and signal-to-noise ratio. For a published sample of 12 bright ultraluminous infrared galaxies with detailed OH-based outflow modeling, CO outflows are detected in all but one. Outflow masses, velocities, and sizes for these 11 sources agree well between the two methods, and modest remaining di fferences may relate to the di fferent but overlapping regions sampled by CO emission and OH absorption. Outflow properties correlate better with active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity and with bolometric luminosity than with far-infrared surface brightness. The most massive outflows are found for systems with current AGN activity, but significant outflows in nonAGN systems must relate to star formation or to AGN activity in the recent past. We report scaling relations for the increase of outflow mass, rate, momentum rate, and kinetic power with bolometric luminosity. Short flow times of similar to 10(6) yr and some sources with resolved multiple outflow episodes support a role of intermittent driving, likely by AGNs.
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| 2. |
- Henshaw, Jonathan D., et al.
(author)
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Ubiquitous velocity fluctuations throughout the molecular interstellar medium
- 2020
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In: Nature Astronomy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-3366. ; 4:11, s. 1064-1071
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The density structure of the interstellar medium determines where stars form and release energy, momentum and heavy elements, driving galaxy evolution1–4. Density variations are seeded and amplified by gas motion, but the exact nature of this motion is unknown across spatial scales and galactic environments5. Although dense star-forming gas probably emerges from a combination of instabilities6,7, convergent flows8 and turbulence9, establishing the precise origin is challenging because it requires gas motion to be quantified over many orders of magnitude in spatial scale. Here we measure10–12 the motion of molecular gas in the Milky Way and in nearby galaxy NGC 4321, assembling observations that span a spatial dynamic range 10−1–103 pc. We detect ubiquitous velocity fluctuations across all spatial scales and galactic environments. Statistical analysis of these fluctuations indicates how star-forming gas is assembled. We discover oscillatory gas flows with wavelengths ranging from 0.3–400 pc. These flows are coupled to regularly spaced density enhancements that probably form via gravitational instabilities13,14. We also identify stochastic and scale-free velocity and density fluctuations, consistent with the structure generated in turbulent flows9. Our results demonstrate that the structure of the interstellar medium cannot be considered in isolation. Instead, its formation and evolution are controlled by nested, interdependent flows of matter covering many orders of magnitude in spatial scale.
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| 3. |
- Larson, Kirsten L., et al.
(author)
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Multiscale stellar associations across the star formation hierarchy in PHANGS-HST nearby galaxies : methodology and properties
- 2023
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In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 523:4, s. 6061-6081
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We develop a method to identify and determine the physical properties of stellar associations using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) NUV−U−B−V−I imaging of nearby galaxies from the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby GalaxieS with the Hubble Space Telescope (PHANGS–HST) survey. We apply a watershed algorithm to density maps constructed from point source catalogues Gaussian smoothed to multiple physical scales from 8 to 64 pc. We develop our method on two galaxies that span the distance range in the PHANGS–HST sample: NGC 3351 (10 Mpc) and NGC 1566 (18 Mpc). We test our algorithm with different parameters such as the choice of detection band for the point source catalogue (NUV or V), source density image filtering methods, and absolute magnitude limits. We characterize the properties of the resulting multiscale associations, including sizes, number of tracer stars, number of associations, and photometry, as well as ages, masses, and reddening from spectral energy distribution fitting. Our method successfully identifies structures that occupy loci in the UBVI colour–colour diagram consistent with previously published catalogues of clusters and associations. The median ages of the associations increase from log(age/yr) = 6.6 to log(age/yr) = 6.9 as the spatial scale increases from 8 to 64 pc for both galaxies. We find that the youngest stellar associations, with ages <3 Myr, indeed closely trace H II regions in H α imaging, and that older associations are increasingly anticorrelated with the H α emission. Owing to our new method, the PHANGS–HST multiscale associations provide a far more complete census of recent star formation activity than found with previous cluster and compact association catalogues.
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| 4. |
- McLeod, Anna F., et al.
(author)
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The impact of pre-supernova feedback and its dependence on environment
- 2021
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In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 508:4, s. 5425-5448
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Integral field units enable resolved studies of a large number of star-forming regions across entire nearby galaxies, providing insight on the conversion of gas into stars and the feedback from the emerging stellar populations over unprecedented dynamic ranges in terms of spatial scale, star-forming region properties, and environments. We use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) legacy data set covering the central 35 arcmin(2) (similar to 12 kpc(2)) of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 to quantify the effect of stellar feedback as a function of the local galactic environment. We extract spectra from emission line regions identified within dendrograms, combine emission line ratios and line widths to distinguish between regions, planetary nebulae, and supernova remnants, and compute their ionized gas properties, gas-phase oxygen abundances, and feedback-related pressure terms. For the regions, we find that the direct radiation pressure (P-dir) and the pressure of the ionized gas (P-HII) weakly increase towards larger galactocentric radii, i.e. along the galaxy's (negative) abundance and (positive) extinction gradients. While the increase of P-HII with galactocentric radius is likely due to higher photon fluxes from lower-metallicity stellar populations, we find that the increase of P-dir is likely driven by the combination of higher photon fluxes and enhanced dust content at larger galactocentric radii. In light of the above, we investigate the effect of increased pre-supernova feedback at larger galactocentric distances (lower metallicities and increased dust mass surface density) on the ISM, finding that supernovae at lower metallicities expand into lower-density environments, thereby enhancing the impact of supernova feedback.
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