Luminous Infrared Galaxies with the Submillimeter Array. I. Survey Overview and the Central Gas to Dust Ratio

By C. Wilson, G. Petitpas, D. Iono, A. Baker, A. Peck, M. Krips, B. Warren, J. Golding, Adam M. Atkinson, Lee Armus and 7 more. 2008

154 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present new data obtained with the Submillimeter Array for a sample of 14 nearby luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies. The galaxies were selected to have distances DL < 200 Mpc and far-infrared luminosities log LFIR > 11.4. The galaxies were observed with spatial resolutions of order 1 kpc in the CO J = 3–2, CO J = 2–1,13CO J = 2–1, and HCO+ J = 4–3 lines as well as the continuum at 880 μm and 1.3 mm. We have combined our CO and continuum data to measure an average gas-to-dust mass ratio of 120 ± 28 (rms deviation 109) in the central regions of these galaxies, very similar to the value of 150 determined for the Milky Way. This similarity is interesting given the more intense heating from the starburst and possibly accretion activity in the luminous infrared galaxies compared to the Milky Way. We find that the peak H2 surface density correlates with the far-infrared luminosity, which suggests that galaxies with higher gas surface densities inside the central kiloparsec have a higher star formation rate. The lack of a significant correlation between total H2 mass and far-infrared luminosity in our sample suggests that the increased star formation rate is due to the increased availability of molecular gas as fuel for star formation in the central regions. In contrast to previous analyses by other authors, we do not find a significant correlation between central gas surface density and the star formation efficiency, as traced by the ratio of far-infrared luminosity to nuclear gas mass. Our data show that it is the star formation rate, not the star formation efficiency, that increases with increasing central gas surface density in these galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c93bab17ceea25478cf11037059f261ce24d5bdf

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Citations in the corpus

VALIDATION OF THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL FOR GALAXY EVOLUTION TO z ∼ 3 THROUGH MOLECULAR GAS AND DUST OBSERVATIONS OF LENSED STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, background): “The value of δGDR is also expected to vary in high density environments, such as the nuclear regions of starbursts, but observations suggest only a mild decrease of no more than a factor of 2 (Wilson et al. 2008; Clements et al. 2010; Santini et al. 2010).”
Far-infrared spectral energy distribution fitting for galaxies near and far (2012, unknown): “Furthermore, interferometers like ALMA will make it routinely possible to resolve dust emission on kpc scales within distant galaxies (as the Submillimeter Array, SMA, has done for some local ULIRGs; Wilson et al. 2008).”
Evidence of strong quasar feedback in the early Universe (2012, background): “However, even if real, an offset of the centroid of the outflowing gas is not surprising, since outflows observed in local and high-z galaxies are not aligned with the galaxy centers (Weiß et al. 2001; Walter et al. 2004; Wilson et al. 2008; Alatalo et al. 2011).”
ALMA IMAGING OF GAS AND DUST IN A GALAXY PROTOCLUSTER AT REDSHIFT 5.3: [C ii] EMISSION IN “TYPICAL” GALAXIES AND DUSTY STARBURSTS ≈1 BILLION YEARS AFTER THE BIG BANG (2014, background): “These values are higher than the average of 120±28 found for the nuclei of nearby infrared-luminous galaxies, but within the range of values measured for individual sources (29–725; Wilson et al. 2008).”
A MOLECULAR STAR FORMATION LAW IN THE ATOMIC-GAS-DOMINATED REGIME IN NEARBY GALAXIES (2011, background): “…d’Hères, France 9 Observatorio Astronómico Nacional, C/ Alfonso XII, 3, 28014, Madrid, Spain 10 MPIfR, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany 11 Hubble Fellow 2007; Bigiel et al. 2008; Leroy et al. 2008; Wilson et al. 2008; Blanc et al. 2009; see also the recent review by Bigiel et al. 2011).”
The molecular gas in Luminous Infrared Galaxies I: CO lines, extreme physical conditions, and their drivers (2011, unknown): “…14=Solomon et al. 1997; 15=Scoville et al. 2000;16=Murphy et al. 1996; 17=Bryant & Scoville 1999; 18=Evans et al. 2002; 19=Sanders et al. 1988; 20=Wilson et al. 2008; 21=Yao et al. 2003; 22=Zenner & Lenzen 1993; 23=Planesas et al. 1991; 24=Gracia-Carpio et al. 2007; 25=Evans et al. 2001;…”
The formation of high-redshift submillimetre galaxies (2009, result): “We additionally assume a constant dust-to-gas ratio comparable to that of ULIRGs (1/50; Wilson et al. 2008) which tentative evidence suggests is appropriate for SMGs (Greve et al. 2005; Kovács et al. 2006; Tacconi et al. 2006).”
Detection of HCN, HCO+, and HNC in the Mrk 231 molecular outflow. Dense molecular gas in the AGN wind (2011, result): “Theseare generally consistent with similar features in the CO 2–1 map by Downes & Solomon (1998) and in the HCO+ 4–3 map by Wilson et al. (2008).”
The multi-phase winds of Markarian 231: from the hot, nuclear, ultra-fast wind to the galaxy-scale, molecular outflow (2015, result): “The single dish flux from Wilson et al. (2008), 480±100 Jy km s−1, is slightly smaller than our estimate.”
THE MOLECULAR GAS IN LUMINOUS INFRARED GALAXIES. II. EXTREME PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE Xco FACTOR (2012, background): “The half-light source radius at 2µm is ∼450 pc while an interferometric CO J=3–2 image reveals a gas distribution of ∼2′′(1.5 kpc) in size (Wilson et al. 2008).”
THE SCALE DEPENDENCE OF THE MOLECULAR GAS DEPLETION TIME IN M33 (2010, background): “…Germany 2 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA 3 University of British Columbia Okanagan, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada 4 Hubble Fellow Kennicutt et al. 2007; Bigiel et al. 2008; Leroy et al. 2008; Wilson et al. 2008).”
Characterization of Scuba-2 450 μm and 850 μm selected galaxies in the COSMOS field (2013, background): “We fit all available infrared photometry, from 24µm MIPS, 70µm MIPS, 450µm Scuba-2, 850µm Scuba-2, 870µm LABOCA, 1.1 mm AzTEC, 1.2 mm MAMBO, and 1.3 mm PdBI.”