Spectral imaging of the Central Molecular Zone in multiple 3-mm molecular lines

By P. Jones, M. Burton, M. Cunningham, M. Requena-Torres, K. Menten, Peter Schilke, Arnaud Belloche, S. Leurini, J. Martín-Pintado, Juerg Ott and 1 more. 2011

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We have mapped 20 spectral lines in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) around the Galactic Centre, emitting from 85.3 to 93.3 GHz. This work used the 22-m Mopra radio telescope in Australia, equipped with the 8-GHz bandwidth University of New South Wales-Mopra Spectrometer (UNSW-MOPS) digital filter bank, obtaining ∼2 km s−1 spectral and ∼40 arcsec spatial resolution. The lines measured include emission from the c-C3H2, CH3CCH, HOCO+, SO, H13CN, H13CO+, SO, H13NC, C2H, HNCO, HCN, HCO+, HNC, HC3N, 13CS and N2H+ molecules. The area covered is Galactic longitude −0bsl000647 to 1bsl000648 and latitude −0bsl000643 to 0bsl000642, including the bright dust cores around Sgr A, Sgr B2, Sgr C and G1.6−0.025. We present images from this study and conduct a principal component analysis on the integrated emission from the brightest eight lines. This is dominated by the first component, showing that the large-scale distribution of all molecules is very similar. We examine the line ratios and optical depths in selected apertures around the bright dust cores, as well as for the complete mapped region of the CMZ. We highlight the behaviour of the bright HCN, HNC and HCO+ line emission, together with that from the 13C isotopologues of these species, and compare the behaviour with that found in extragalactic sources where the emission is unresolved spatially. We also find that the isotopologue line ratios (e.g. HCO+/H13CO+) rise significantly with increasing redshifted velocity in some locations. Line luminosities are also calculated and compared to that of CO, as well as to line luminosities determined for external galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spectroscopy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bbf99cc3691d81bf385b03d964297cc4b14b7e24

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Citations in the corpus

Molecular gas kinematics within the central 250 pc of the Milky Way (2016, methodology): “This magnitude is similar to that found by Jones et al. (2012), who studied the peak velocity of N2H+ emission from the Mopra CMZ survey, finding G ∼ 0.7 km s−1 pc−1.”
Hi-GAL, the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey: Photometric maps and compact source catalogues: First data release for the inner Milky Way: +68° ≥ l ≥ -70° (2016, background): “Recent unbiased surveys with the Mopra antenna in Australia (Burton et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2012) are starting to fill the gap with the data quality of the CO surveys in the northern portion of the GP.”
The dynamical evolution of molecular clouds near the Galactic Centre - I. Orbital structure and evolutionary timeline (2014, background): “A quick inspection of the HOPS NH3(1, 1) data shows that there are indeed indications of such an extension, at roughly the correct latitudes (b ∼ −0.05◦ versus the predictedb ∼ 0.02◦, also see e.g. Figure 7 of Jones et al. 2012 and Figure 7 of Ott et al. 2014).”
Star formation rates and efficiencies in the Galactic Centre (2017, methodology): “C© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society Surveys using ATCA, APEX and the SMA have shown that high critical density molecular gas tracers are widespread and spatially trace the peaks in column density (e.g. Jones et al. 2012).”
Variations in the Galactic star formation rate and density thresholds for star formation (2012, background): “…large Galactic, molecular-line mapping projects are also being conducted on the Mopra telescope e.g. Barnes et al. (2011); Foster et al. (2011); Jones et al. (2012) 500µm HiGAL data traces optically-thin dust emission, providing a measurement of the gas column density along a given line of…”
THE STAR FORMATION RATE OF TURBULENT MAGNETIZED CLOUDS: COMPARING THEORY, SIMULATIONS, AND OBSERVATIONS (2012, background): “…1981; Solomon et al. 1987; Ossenkopf & Mac Low 2002; Heyer & Brunt 2004; Heyer et al. 2009; Roman-Duval et al. 2011), the Galactic Central Molecular Zone (Jones et al. 2012; Shetty et al. 2012), and from numerical simulations (Kritsuk et al. 2007; Schmidt et al. 2009; Federrath et al.…”