The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
ALMA-LEGUS. I. The Influence of Galaxy Morphology on Molecular Cloud Properties
- Molly K. Finn,
- Kelsey E. Johnson,
- Remy Indebetouw,
- Allison H. Costa,
- Angela Adamo,
- Alessandra Aloisi,
- Lauren Bittle,
- Daniela Calzetti,
- Daniel A. Dale,
- Clare L. Dobbs,
- Jennifer Donovan Meyer,
- Bruce G. Elmegreen,
- Debra M. Elmegreen,
- Michele Fumagalli,
- J. S. Gallagher,
- Kathryn Grasha,
- Eva K. Grebel,
- Robert C. Kennicutt,
- Mark R. Krumholz,
- Janice C. Lee,
- Matteo Messa,
- Preethi Nair,
- Elena Sabbi,
- Linda J. Smith,
- David A. Thilker,
- Bradley C. Whitmore,
- Aida Wofford
Affiliations
- Molly K. Finn
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
- Kelsey E. Johnson
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
- Remy Indebetouw
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA; National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- Allison H. Costa
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- Angela Adamo
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University , SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
- Alessandra Aloisi
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Lauren Bittle
- ORCiD
- Independent Researcher, USA
- Daniela Calzetti
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts Amherst , 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Daniel A. Dale
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Wyoming , Laramie, WY 82071, USA
- Clare L. Dobbs
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter , Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK
- Jennifer Donovan Meyer
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- Bruce G. Elmegreen
- ORCiD
- IBM Research Division , T.J. Watson Research Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
- Debra M. Elmegreen
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy , Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604, USA
- Michele Fumagalli
- ORCiD
- Dipartimento di Fisica G. Occhialini, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca , Piazza della Scienza 3, 20126 Milano, Italy; INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste , via G.B. Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
- J. S. Gallagher
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison 475 North Charter Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA
- Kathryn Grasha
- ORCiD
- Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University , Cotter Road, Weston, ACT 2612, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO-3D) , Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia; Visiting Fellow, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Eva K. Grebel
- ORCiD
- Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg , Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- Robert C. Kennicutt
- ORCiD
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona , Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; George P. and Cynthia W. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77845, USA
- Mark R. Krumholz
- ORCiD
- Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University , Cotter Road, Weston, ACT 2612, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence for Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO-3D) , Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
- Janice C. Lee
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Matteo Messa
- ORCiD
- Observatoire de Genéve, Université de Genève , Versoix, Switzerland; The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University , AlbaNova, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
- Preethi Nair
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Alabama , Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
- Elena Sabbi
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Linda J. Smith
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- David A. Thilker
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, MD 21218 USA
- Bradley C. Whitmore
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Aida Wofford
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México , Unidad Académica en Ensenada, Km 103 Carr. Tijuana–Ensenada, Ensenada, B.C., C.P. 22860, México
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad1eec
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 964,
no. 1
p. 12
Abstract
We present a comparative study of the molecular gas in two galaxies from the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) sample: barred spiral NGC 1313 and flocculent spiral NGC 7793. These two galaxies have similar masses, metallicities, and star formation rates, but NGC 1313 is forming significantly more massive star clusters than NGC 7793, especially young massive clusters (10 ^4 M _⊙ ). Using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) CO(2–1) observations of the two galaxies with the same sensitivity and resolution (13 pc), we directly compare the molecular gas in these two similar galaxies to determine the physical conditions responsible for their large disparity in cluster formation. By fitting size–line width relations for the clouds in each galaxy, we find that NGC 1313 has a higher intercept than NGC 7793, implying that its clouds have higher kinetic energies at a given size scale. NGC 1313 also has more clouds near virial equilibrium than NGC 7793, which may be connected to its higher rate of massive cluster formation. However, these virially bound clouds do not show a stronger correlation with young clusters than with the general cloud population. We find surprisingly small differences between the distributions of molecular cloud populations in the two galaxies, though the largest of those differences is that NGC 1313 has higher surface densities and lower freefall times.
Keywords
