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We present the discovery of NGC253-SNFC-dw1, a new satellite galaxy in the remote stellar halo of the Sculptor Group spiral, NGC 253. The system was revealed using deep, resolved star photometry obtained as part of the Subaru Near-Field Cosmology Survey that uses the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. Although rather luminous ( M _V = −11.7 ± 0.2) and massive ( M _* ∼ 1.25 × 10 ^7 M _⊙ ), the system is one of the most diffuse satellites yet known, with a half-light radius of R _h = 3.37 ± 0.36 kpc and an average surface brightness of ∼30.1 mag arcmin ^−2 within the R _h . The color–magnitude diagram shows a dominant, old (∼10 Gyr), and metal-poor ([M/H] = −1.5 ± 0.1 dex) stellar population, as well as several candidate thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch stars. The distribution of red giant branch stars is asymmetrical and displays two elongated tidal extensions pointing toward NGC 253, suggestive of a highly disrupted system being observed at apocenter. NGC253-SNFC-dw1 has a size comparable to that of the puzzling Local Group dwarfs Andromeda XIX and Antlia 2 but is 2 magnitudes brighter. While unambiguous evidence of tidal disruption in these systems has not yet been demonstrated, the morphology of NGC253-SNFC-dw1 clearly shows that this is a natural path to produce such diffuse and extended galaxies. The surprising discovery of this system in a previously well-searched region of the sky emphasizes the importance of surface-brightness limiting depth in satellite searches.

We present the CO(1–0) maps of 28 infrared-bright galaxies from the Great Observatories All-Sky Luminous Infrared Galaxy Survey (GOALS) taken with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA). We detect 100 GHz continuum in 16 of the 28 CARMA GOALS galaxies, which trace both active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and compact star-forming cores. The GOALS galaxies show a variety of molecular gas morphologies, though in the majority of cases the average velocity fields show a gradient consistent with rotation. We fit the full continuum spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of each of the sources using either magphys or SED3FIT (if there are signs of an AGN) to derive the total stellar mass, dust mass, and SFRs of each object. We adopt a value determined from luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs) of α _CO = ${1.5}_{-0.8}^{+1.3}$ M _⊙ (K km s ^−1 pc ^2 ) ^−1 , which leads to more physical values for f _mol and the gas-to-dust ratio. Mergers tend to have the highest gas-to-dust ratios. We assume the cospatiality of the molecular gas and star formation and plot the CARMA GOALS sample on the Schmidt–Kennicutt relation, where we find that they preferentially lie above the line set by normal star-forming galaxies. This hyper-efficiency is likely due to the increased turbulence in these systems, which decreases the freefall time compared to star-forming galaxies, leading to “enhanced” star formation efficiency. Line wings are present in a non-negligible subsample (11/28) of the CARMA GOALS sources and are likely due to outflows driven by AGNs or star formation, gas inflows, or additional decoupled gas components.

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) data toward QSO J1851+0035 ( l = 33.°498, b = +0.°194) were used to study absorption lines by Galactic molecular gas. We detected 17 species (CO, ^13 CO, C ^18 O, HCO ^+ , H ^13 CO ^+ , HCO, H _2 CO, C _2 H, c -C _3 H, c -C _3 H _2 , CN, HCN, HNC, CS, SO, SiO, and C) and set upper limits to 18 species as reference values for chemical models. About 20 independent velocity components at 4.7–10.9 kpc from the Galactic center were identified. Their column density and excitation temperature estimated from the absorption study, as well as the CO intensity distributions obtained from the FUGIN survey, indicate that the components with τ ≲1 correspond to diffuse clouds or cloud outer edges. Simultaneous multiple-Gaussian fitting of CO J = 1–0 and J = 2–1 absorption lines shows that these are composed of narrow- and broad-line components. The kinetic temperature empirically expected from the high HCN/HNC isomer ratio (≳4) reaches ≳40 K and the corresponding thermal width accounts for the line widths of the narrow-line components. CN-bearing molecules and hydrocarbons have tight and linear correlations within the groups. The CO/HCO ^+ abundance ratio showed a dispersion as large as 3 orders of magnitude with a smaller ratio in a smaller N (HCO ^+ ) (or lower A _V ) range. Some of the velocity components are detected in single-dish CO emission and ALMA HCO ^+ absorption but without corresponding ALMA CO absorption. This may be explained by the mixture of clumpy CO emitters not resolved with the ∼1 pc single-dish beam surrounded by extended components with a very low CO/HCO ^+ abundance ratio (i.e., CO-poor gas).

We analyze the CO-to-H _2 conversion factor ( α _CO ) in the nearby barred spiral galaxy M83. We present new H i observations from the VLA and single-dish GBT in the disk of the galaxy, and combine them with maps of CO(1-0) integrated intensity and dust surface density from the literature. α _CO and the gas-to-dust ratio ( δ _GDR ) are simultaneously derived in annuli of 2 kpc width from R = 1–7 kpc. We find that α _CO and δ _GDR both increase radially, by a factor of ∼2–3 from the center to the outskirts of the disk. The luminosity-weighted averages over the disk are α _CO = 3.14 (2.06, 4.96) ${M}_{\odot }\,\,{\mathrm{pc}}^{-2}{[{\rm{K}}\,\,\mathrm{km}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}]}^{-1}$ and δ _GDR = 137 (111, 182) at the 68% (1 σ ) confidence level. These are consistent with the α _CO and δ _GDR values measured in the Milky Way. In addition to possible variations of α _CO due to the radial metallicity gradient, we test the possibility of variations in α _CO due to changes in the underlying cloud populations, as a function of galactic radius. Using a truncated power-law molecular cloud CO luminosity function and an empirical power-law relation for cloud mass and luminosity, we show that the changes in the underlying cloud population may account for a factor of ∼1.5–2.0 radial change in α _CO .

The “tuning-fork” (TF) analysis of CO and H α emission has been used to estimate the lifetimes of molecular clouds in nearby galaxies. With simple model calculations, we show that this analysis does not necessarily estimate cloud lifetimes, but instead captures a duration of the cloud evolutionary cycle, from dormant to star-forming, and then back to a dormant phase. We adopt a hypothetical setup in which molecular clouds (e.g., traced in CO) live forever and form stars (e.g., H ii regions) at some frequency, which then drift away from the clouds. The TF analysis still returns a timescale for the immortal clouds. This model requires drifting motion to separate the newborn stars from the clouds, and we discuss its origin. We also discuss the physical origin of the characteristic spatial separation term in the TF analysis and a bias due to systematic error in the determination of the reference timescale.

This is the first in a series of papers on the properties of ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) in clusters of galaxies. We present an updated catalog of UDGs in the Coma Cluster using g - and r -band images obtained with Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) of the Subaru telescope. We develop a method to find UDGs even in the presence of contaminating objects, such as halos and background galaxies. This study expands upon our previous works that covered about half the area of the Coma Cluster. The HSC observations covered the whole Coma Cluster up to the virial radius and beyond (an area twice as large as the previous studies) and doubled the numbers of UDGs ( r _eff, r ≥ 1.5 kpc) and sub-UDGs (1.0 ≤ r _eff, r < 1.5 kpc) to 774 and 729, respectively. The new UDGs show internal properties consistent with those of previous studies (e.g., a Sérsic index of approximately 1), and are distributed across the cluster, with a concentration around the cluster center. The whole cluster coverage clearly revealed an excess of their distribution toward the east to southwest direction along the cluster center, where Coma connects to other large-scale structure, and where a known substructure exists (the NGC 4839 subgroup). The alignment of the UDG distribution along the large-scale structure around Coma supports the interpretation that most of them lie at the distance of the Coma Cluster and the NGC 4839 subgroup.

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) imaging of molecular gas across the full star-forming disk of the barred spiral galaxy M83 in CO( J = 1–0). We jointly deconvolve the data from ALMA’s 12 m, 7 m, and Total Power arrays using the MIRIAD package. The data have a mass sensitivity and resolution of 10 ^4 M _⊙ (3 σ ) and 40 pc—sufficient to detect and resolve a typical molecular cloud in the Milky Way with a mass and diameter of 4 × 10 ^5 M _⊙ and 40 pc, respectively. The full disk coverage shows that the characteristics of molecular gas change radially from the center to outer disk, with the locally measured brightness temperature, velocity dispersion, and integrated intensity (surface density) decreasing outward. The molecular gas distribution shows coherent large-scale structures in the inner part, including the central concentration, offset ridges along the bar, and prominent molecular spiral arms. However, while the arms are still present in the outer disk, they appear less spatially coherent, and even flocculent. Massive filamentary gas concentrations are abundant even in the interarm regions. Building up these structures in the interarm regions would require a very long time (≳100 Myr). Instead, they must have formed within stellar spiral arms and been released into the interarm regions. For such structures to survive through the dynamical processes, the lifetimes of these structures and their constituent molecules and molecular clouds must be long (≳100 Myr). These interarm structures host little or no star formation traced by H α . The new map also shows extended CO emission, which likely represents an ensemble of unresolved molecular clouds.

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of the long-wavelength dust continuum are used to estimate the gas masses in a sample of 708 star-forming galaxies at z = 0.3−4.5. We determine the dependence of gas masses and star formation efficiencies (SFEs; SFR per unit gas mass) on redshift (z), M _* , and star formation rate (SFR) relative to the main sequence (MS). We find that 70% of the increase in SFRs of the MS is due to the increased gas masses at earlier epochs, while 30% is due to increased efficiency of star formation (SF). For galaxies above the MS this is reversed—with 70% of the increased SFR relative to the MS being due to elevated SFEs. Thus, the major evolution of star formation activity at early epochs is driven by increased gas masses, while the starburst activity taking galaxies above the MS is due to enhanced triggering of star formation (likely due to galactic merging). The interstellar gas peaks at z = 2 and dominates the stellar mass down to z = 1.2. Accretion rates needed to maintain continuity of the MS evolution reach >100 M _⊙ yr ^−1 at z > 2. The galactic gas contents are likely the driving determinant for both the rise in SF and AGN activity from z = 5 to their peak at z = 2 and subsequent fall at lower z . We suggest that for self-gravitating clouds with supersonic turbulence, cloud collisions and the filamentary structure of the clouds regulate the star formation activity.

We report deep Subaru Hα observations of the extended ultraviolet (XUV) disk of M83. These new observations enable the first complete census of very young stellar clusters over the entire XUV disk. Combining Subaru and Galaxy Evolution Explorer data with a stellar population synthesis model, we find that (1) the standard, but stochastically sampled, initial mass function (IMF) is preferred over the truncated IMF because there are low-mass stellar clusters (102-3 M⊙) that host massive O-type stars; (2) the standard Salpeter IMF and a simple aging effect explain the counts of far-UV (FUV)-bright and Hα-bright clusters with masses >10³ M⊙; and (3) the Hα-to-FUV flux ratio over the XUV disk supports the standard IMF. To reach conclusion (2), we assumed instantaneous cluster formation and a constant cluster formation rate over the XUV disk. The Subaru Prime Focus Camera covers a large area even outside the XUV disk--far beyond the detection limit of the H I gas. This enables us to statistically separate the stellar clusters in the disk from background contamination. The new data, model, and previous spectroscopic studies provide overall consistent results with respect to the internal dust extinction (AV ~ 0.1 mag) and low metallicity (~0.2 Z⊙) using the dust extinction curve of the Small Magellanic Cloud. The minimum cluster mass for avoiding the upper IMF incompleteness due to stochastic sampling and the spectral energy distributions of O, B, and A stars are discussed in the Appendices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new package for joint deconvolution of ALMA 12 m, 7 m, and Total Power (TP) data, dubbed “Total Power Map to Visibilities (Tp2vis)”. It converts a TP (single-dish) map into visibilities on the Casa platform, which can be input into deconvolvers (e.g., Clean) along with 12 m and 7 m visibilities. The Tp2vis procedure is based primarily on the one discussed in Koda et al. A manual is presented in the Github repository (https://github.com/tp2vis/distribute). Combining data from the different ALMA arrays is a driver for a number of science topics, namely those that probe size scales of extended and compact structures simultaneously (e.g., protostar outflows and environment, AGB stars and planetary nebulae, molecular clouds and cores, and molecular clouds in galaxies). We test Tp2vis using model images, one with a single Gaussian and another that mimics the internal structures of giant molecular clouds. The result shows that the better uv coverage with Tp2vis visibilities clearly helps the deconvolution process and reproduces the model image within errors of only 5% over two orders of magnitude in flux. In the Appendix, we describe how the model image is generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We observed five giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the 12CO J = 1–0 line using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The sample includes four GMCs with some signs of star formation—either YSOs, H ii regions, and/or young clusters—and one quiescent GMC without any sign of massive star formation. The data from the ALMA 12 m, 7 m, and Total-Power arrays are jointly deconvolved to obtain high-fidelity images at high spatial resolution (3″ = 0.7 pc). The four star-forming GMCs show very complex structures with clumps and filaments. The quiescent GMC shows a relatively diffuse, extended emission distribution without prominent clumps or filaments. This difference is similar to that between structured molecular gas in Milky Way spiral arms and unstructured gas in the inter-arm regions. We characterize the difference with the brightness distribution function and brightness distribution index. In conjunction with other ALMA studies of GMCs in the LMC, the five GMCs tentatively form an evolutionary trend: from less structured, quiescent GMCs to more structured, actively star-forming GMCs. A future ALMA study will be able to map molecular clouds over the LMC and reveal the evolutionary sequence of molecular clouds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the presence of tidal features associated with ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in galaxy clusters. Specifically, we stack deep Subaru images of UDGs in the Coma cluster to determine whether they show position angle twists at large radii. Selecting galaxies with central surface brightness magarcsec−2 and projected half-light radius , we identify 287 UDGs in the Yagi et al. catalog of low surface brightness Coma objects. The UDGs have apparent spheroidal shapes with median Sérsic index and median axis ratio . The images are processed by masking all background objects and rotating to align the major axis before stacking them in bins of properties such as axis ratio, angle of major axis with respect to the cluster center, and separation from cluster center. Our image stacks reach further than 7 kpc (≳4re). Analysis of the isophotes of the stacks reveals that the ellipticity remains constant up to the last measured point, which means that the individual galaxies have a non-varying position angle and axis ratio and show no evidence for tidal disruption out to . We demonstrate this explicitly by comparing our stacks with stacks of model UDGs with and without tidal features in their outskirts. We infer that the average tidal radius of the Coma UDGs is >7 kpc and estimate that the average dark matter fraction within the tidal radius of the UDGs inhabiting the innermost 0.5 Mpc of Coma is >99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a linear relation between the mass of dense gas traced by the HCN(1–0) luminosity and the star formation rate (SFR) traced by the far-infrared luminosity. Recent observations of galactic disks have shown some systematic variations. In order to explore the SFR–dense gas link at high resolution (∼4″, ∼150 pc) in the outer disk of an external galaxy, we have mapped a region about 5 kpc from the center along the northern spiral arm of M51 in the HCN(1–0), HCO+(1–0), and HNC(1–0) emission lines using the Northern Extended Millimeter Array interferometer. The HCN and HCO+ lines were detected in six giant molecular associations (GMAs), while HNC emission was only detected in the two brightest GMAs. One of the GMAs hosts a powerful H ii region, and HCN is stronger than HCO+ there. Comparing observations of GMAs in the disks of M31 and M33 at similar angular resolution (∼100 pc), we find that GMAs in the outer disk of M51 are brighter in both the HCN and the HCO+ lines by a factor of 3, on average. However, the and ratios are similar to the ratios in nearby galactic disks and the Galactic plane. Using the Herschel 70 μm data to trace the total IR luminosity at the resolution of the GMAs, we find that both the – and – relations in the outer disk GMAs are consistent with the proportionality between the and the dense gas mass established globally in galaxies within the scatter. The IR/HCN and IR/HCO+ ratios of the GMAs vary by a factor of 3, probably depending on whether massive stars are forming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present 90 mas (37 pc) resolution ALMA imaging of Arp 220 in the CO (1-0) line and continuum at . The internal gas distribution and kinematics of both galactic nuclei are well resolved for the first time. In the west nucleus, the major gas and dust emission extends out to 0.″2 radius (74 pc); the central resolution element shows a strong peak in the dust emission but a factor of 3 dip in the CO line emission. In this nucleus, the dust is apparently optically thick () at with a dust brightness temperature of ∼147 K. The column of interstellar matter at this nucleus is cm−2, corresponding to ∼900 gr cm−2. The east nucleus is more elongated with radial extent 0.″3 or ∼111 pc. The derived kinematics of the nuclear disks provide a good fit to the line profiles, yielding the emissivity distributions, the rotation curves, and velocity dispersions. In the west nucleus, there is evidence of a central Keplerian component requiring a central mass of 8 × 108 . The intrinsic widths of the emission lines are (west) and 120 (east) km s−1. Given the very short dissipation timescales for turbulence (≲105 years), we suggest that the line widths may be due to semicoherent motions within the nuclear disks. The symmetry of the nuclear disk structures is impressive, implying the merger timescale is significantly longer than the rotation period of the disks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze radial and azimuthal variations of the phase balance between the molecular and atomic interstellar medium (ISM) in the Milky Way (MW) using archival CO(J = 1-0) and HI 21 cm data. In particular, the azimuthal variations—between the spiral arm and interarm regions—are analyzed without any explicit definition of the spiral arm locations. We show that the molecular gas mass fraction, i.e., , varies predominantly in the radial direction: starting from at the center, remaining to and decreasing to ∼10%–20% at when averaged over the whole disk thickness (from ∼100% to ≳60%, then to ∼50% in the midplane). Azimuthal, arm-interarm variations are secondary: only in the globally molecule-dominated inner MW, but becoming larger, ∼40%–50%, in the atom-dominated outskirts. This suggests that in the inner MW the gas remains highly molecular () as it moves from an interarm region into a spiral arm and back into the next interarm region. Stellar feedback does not dissociate molecules much, and the coagulation and fragmentation of molecular clouds dominate the evolution of the ISM at these radii. The trend differs in the outskirts where the gas phase is globally atomic (). The HI and H2 phases cycle through spiral arm passage there. These different regimes of ISM evolution are also seen in external galaxies (e.g., the LMC, M33, and M51). We explain the radial gradient of using a simple flow continuity model. The effects of spiral arms on this analysis are illustrated in the Appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we investigate the molecular gas and star-formation properties in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 6946 using multiple molecular lines and star-formation tracers. A high-resolution image (100 pc) of 13CO (1–0) is created for the inner 2 kpc disk by the single-dish Nobeyama Radio Observatory 45 m telescope and interferometer Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy, including the central region (nuclear ring and bar) and the offset ridges of the primary bar. Single-dish HCN (1–0) observations were also made to constrain the amount of dense gas. The physical properties of molecular gas are inferred from (1) the large velocity gradient calculations using our observations and archival 12CO (1–0), 12CO(2–1) data, (2) the dense gas fraction suggested by the luminosity ratio of HCN to 12CO (1–0), and (3) the infrared color. The results show that the molecular gas in the central region is warmer and denser than that of the offset ridges. The dense gas fraction of the central region is similar to that of luminous infrared galaxies/ultraluminous infrared galaxies, whereas the offset ridges are close to the global average of normal galaxies. The coolest and least-dense region is found in a spiral-like structure, which was misunderstood to be part of the southern primary bar in previous low-resolution observations. The star-formation efficiency (SFE) changes by about five times in the inner disk. The variation of SFE agrees with the prediction in terms of star formation regulated by the galactic bar. We find a consistency between the star-forming region and the temperature inferred by the infrared color, suggesting that the distribution of subkiloparsec-scale temperature is driven by star formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complementing the observations on the eastern part of galaxy NGC 6946 presented in a previous work, we report high spatial resolution observations of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the nearby spiral galaxies M101 and NGC 628 obtained with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). We observed over regions with active star formation extending from 2 to 15 kpc galactocentric radius. Higher resolution observations of toward the brightest regions observed in have allowed us to resolve some of the largest GMCs. We have recovered short-spacing u–v components by using single dish observations from the Nobeyama 45 m and IRAM 30 m telescopes. Using the automated CPROPS algorithm we identified 112 CO complexes in the maps and 144 GMCs in the maps. Using a Bayesian fitting approach, we generate scaling relations for the sizes, line widths, and virial masses of the structures identified in this work. We do not find evidence for a tight power-law relation between size and line width, although the limited dynamic range in cloud size remains a clear issue in our analysis. Additionally, we use a Bayesian approach to analyze the scaling relation between the star formation and molecular gas surface density, known as the Kennicutt–Schmidt relation. When we perform our analysis using the boundaries of the structures identified by CPROPS, we find that the distribution of slopes are broadly distributed, mainly due to the limited dynamic range of our measured . In the case of the complexes, the slope distributions are most consistent with super-linear relations, although sub-linear relations cannot be excluded for NGC 628 and NGC 6946. The GMCs from higher resolution maps follow a similar behavior, but with larger scatter. As a complementary study, we use the Bayesian approach to analyze the Kennicutt–Schmidt relation for a uniform grid covering the areas surveyed, and with non-detections included in the analysis. The distributions of slopes is consistent with sub-linear relations for NGC 6946 and NGC 628, but is less constrained for M101. This picture is preserved after a 24 μm background component is subtracted from the measurements. On-arm regions tend to have higher star formation rates than inter-arm regions. Similar to what we find in our study of the eastern part of NGC 6946, in M101 we find regions where the star formation efficiency (SFE) shows marked peaks at specific galoctocentric radii. On the other hand, the distribution of SFE in NGC 628 is more contiguous. We hypothesize that differences in the distribution of SFE may be indicative of different processes driving the spiral structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]