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The Stephan's Quintet (hereafter SQ) is a template source to study the impact of galaxies interaction on the physical state and energetics of their gas. We report on IRAM single-dish CO observations of the SQ compact group of galaxies. These observations follow up the Spitzer discovery of bright mid-IR H2 rotational line emission (L(H2) ≈ 1035 W) from warm (102-3 K) molecular gas, associated with a 30 kpc long shock between a galaxy, NGC 7318b, and NGC 7319's tidal arm. We detect CO(1-0), (2-1) and (3-2) line emission in the inter-galactic medium (IGM)with complex profiles, spanning a velocity range of≈1000 km s-1. The spectra exhibit the pre-shock recession velocities of the two colliding gas systems (5700 and 6700 km s-1), but also intermediate velocities. This shows that much of themolecular gas has formed out of diffuse gas accelerated by the galaxy-tidal arm collision. CO emission is also detected in a bridge feature that connects the shock to the Seyfert member of the group, NGC 7319, and in the northern star forming region, SQ-A, where a new velocity component is identified at 6900 km s-1, in addition to the two velocity components already known. Assuming a Galactic CO(1-0) emission to H2 mass conversion factor, a total H2 mass of ≈5 x 109Mʘis detected in the shock. The ratio between the warm H2 mass derived from Spitzer spectroscopy, and the H2 mass derived from CO fluxes is ≈0.3 in the IGM of SQ, which is 10-100 times higher than in star-forming galaxies. The molecular gas carries a large fraction of the gas kinetic energy involved in the collision, meaning that this energy has not been thermalized yet. The kinetic energy of the H2 gas derived from CO observations is comparable to that of the warm H2 gas from Spitzer spectroscopy, and a factor ≈5 greater than the thermal energy of the hot plasma heated by the collision. In the shock and bridge regions, the ratio of the PAH-to-CO surface luminosities, commonly used to measure the star formation efficiency of the H2 gas, is lower (up to a factor 75) than the observed values in star-forming galaxies. We suggest that turbulence fed by the galaxy-tidal arm collision maintains a high heating rate within the H2 gas. This interpretation implies that the velocity dispersion on the scale of giant molecular clouds in SQ is one order of magnitude larger than the Galactic value. The high amplitude of turbulence may explain why this gas is not forming stars efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the PACS and SPIRE spectrometers on board Herschel, we obtained observations of the Taffy galaxies (UGC 12914/12915) and bridge. The Taffy system is believed to be the result of a face-on collision between two gas-rich galaxies, in which the stellar disks passed through each other, but the gas was dispersed into a massive H i and molecular bridge between them. Emission is detected and mapped in both galaxies and the bridge in the [C ii]157.7 μm and [O i]63.2 μm fine-structure lines. Additionally, SPIRE FTS spectroscopy detects the [C i] and [C i] neutral carbon lines, and weakly detects high-J CO transitions in the bridge. These results indicate that the bridge is composed of a warm multi-phase medium consistent with shock and turbulent heating. Despite low star formation rates in the bridge, the [C ii] emission appears to be enhanced, reaching [C ii]/FIR ratios of 3.3% in parts of the bridge. Both the [C ii] and [O i] lines show broad intrinsic multi-component profiles, similar to those seen in previous CO (1–0) and H i observations. The [C ii] emission shares similar line profiles with both the double-peaked H i profiles and shares a high-velocity component with single-peaked CO profiles in the bridge, suggesting that the [C ii] emission originates in both the neutral and molecular phases. We show that it is feasible that a combination of turbulently heated H2 and high column-density H i, resulting from the galaxy collision, is responsible for the enhanced [C ii] emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We map for the first time the two-dimensional H2 excitation of warm intergalactic gas in Stephan's Quintet on group-wide (50 × 35 kpc2) scales to quantify the temperature, mass, and warm H2 mass fraction as a function of position using Spitzer. Molecular gas temperatures are seen to rise (to T > 700 K) and the slope of the power-law density–temperature relation flattens along the main ridge of the filament, defining the region of maximum heating. We also performed MHD modeling of the excitation properties of the warm gas, to map the velocity structure and energy deposition rate of slow and fast molecular shocks. Slow magnetic shocks were required to explain the power radiated from the lowest-lying rotational states of H2, and strongly support the idea that energy cascades down to small scales and low velocities from the fast collision of NGC 7318b with group-wide gas. The highest levels of heating of the warm H2 are strongly correlated with the large-scale stirring of the medium as measured by [C ii] spectroscopy with Herschel. H2 is also seen associated with a separate bridge that extends toward the Seyfert nucleus in NGC 7319, from both Spitzer and CARMA CO observations. This opens up the possibility that both galaxy collisions and outflows from active galactic nuclei can turbulently heat gas on large scales in compact groups. The observations provide a laboratory for studying the effects of turbulent energy dissipation on group-wide scales, which may provide clues about the heating and cooling of gas at high z in early galaxy and protogalaxy formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present CO(1–0) maps of 12 warm H2-selected Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs), covering 14 individually imaged warm H2 bright galaxies, with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy. We found a variety of molecular gas distributions within the HCGs, including regularly rotating disks, bars, rings, tidal tails, and possibly nuclear outflows, though the molecular gas morphologies are more consistent with spirals and early-type galaxies than mergers and interacting systems. Our CO-imaged HCG galaxies, when plotted on the Kennicutt–Schmidt relation, shows star formation (SF) suppression of distributed bimodally, with five objects exhibiting suppressions of ≳ 10 and depletion timescales ≳10 Gyr. This SF inefficiency is also seen in the efficiency per freefall time of Krumholz et al. We investigate the gas-to-dust ratios of these galaxies to determine if an incorrect LCO–M(H2) conversion caused the apparent suppression and find that HCGs have normal gas-to-dust ratios. It is likely that the cause of the apparent suppression in these objects is associated with shocks injecting turbulence into the molecular gas, supported by the fact that the required turbulent injection luminosity is consistent with the bright H2 luminosity reported by Cluver et al. Galaxies with high SF suppression ( ≳ 10) also appear to be those in the most advanced stages of transition across both optical and infrared color space. This supports the idea that at least some galaxies in HCGs are transitioning objects, where a disruption of the existing molecular gas in the system suppresses SF by inhibiting the molecular gas from collapsing and forming stars efficiently. These observations, combined with recent work on poststarburst galaxies with molecular reservoirs, indicates that galaxies do not need to expel their molecular reservoirs prior to quenching SF and transitioning from blue spirals to red early-type galaxies. This may imply that SF quenching can occur without the need to starve a galaxy of cold gas first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]