ALMA resolves giant molecular clouds in a tidal dwarf galaxy
Metadata
Show full item recordEditorial
EDP Sciences
Materia
Galaxies: dwarf Galaxies: interactions Galaxies: star formation Galaxies: ISM Galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
Date
2021Referencia bibliográfica
Querejeta, M., Lelli, F., Schinnerer, E., Colombo, D., Lisenfeld, U., Mundell, C. G., ... & Rigby, A. J. (2021). ALMA resolves giant molecular clouds in a tidal dwarf galaxy. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 645, A97. [DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202038955]
Sponsorship
Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government PID2019-106027GA-C44; Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad AYA2017-84897-P; European Commission; Junta de Andalucia European Commission FQM108; European Research Council (ERC) 726384/EMPIRE 714907; MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE PGC2018-094671-B-I00 AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P; German Research Foundation (DFG) KR4801/1-1; German Research Foundation (DFG) KR4801/2-1Abstract
Tidal dwarf galaxies (TDGs) are gravitationally bound condensations of gas and stars that formed during galaxy interactions. Here we
present multi-configuration ALMA observations of J1023+1952, a TDG in the interacting system Arp 94, where we resolved CO(2–1)
emission down to giant molecular clouds (GMCs) at 0.6400 ∼ 45 pc resolution. We find a remarkably high fraction of extended molecular emission (∼80−90%), which is filtered out by the interferometer and likely traces diffuse gas. We detect 111 GMCs that give a similar mass spectrum as those in the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies (a truncated power law with a slope of −1.76±0.13). We also
study Larson’s laws over the available dynamic range of GMC properties (∼2 dex in mass and ∼1 dex in size): GMCs follow the sizemass relation of the Milky Way, but their velocity dispersion is higher such that the size-linewidth and virial relations appear superlinear, deviating from the canonical values. The global molecular-to-atomic gas ratio is very high (∼1) while the CO(2–1)/CO(1–0)
ratio is quite low (∼0.5), and both quantities vary from north to south. Star formation predominantly takes place in the south of the
TDG, where we observe projected offsets between GMCs and young stellar clusters ranging from ∼50 pc to ∼200 pc; the largest
offsets correspond to the oldest knots, as seen in other galaxies. In the quiescent north, we find more molecular clouds and a higher
molecular-to-atomic gas ratio (∼1.5); atomic and diffuse molecular gas also have a higher velocity dispersion there. Overall, the organisation of the molecular interstellar medium in this TDG is quite different from other types of galaxies on large scales, but the
properties of GMCs seem fairly similar, pointing to near universality of the star-formation process on small scales.
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