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The new Gaia data release (EDR3) with improved astrometry has opened a new era in studying our Milky Way in fine detail. We use Gaia EDR3 astrometry together with 2MASS and WISE photometry to study two of the most massive molecular clouds in the solar vicinity: Orion A and California. Despite having remarkable similarities in the plane of the sky in terms of shape, size, and extinction, California has an order of magnitude lower star formation efficiency. We use our state-of-the-art dust mapping technique to derive the detailed three-dimensional (3D) structure of the two clouds, taking into account both distance and extinction uncertainties, and a full 3D spatial correlation between neighbouring points. We discover that, despite the apparent filamentary structure in the plane of the sky, California is a flat 120-pc-long sheet extending from 410 to 530 $pc$. We show that not only Orion A and California differ substantially in their 3D shapes, but also Orion A has considerably higher density substructures in 3D than California. This result presents a compelling reason why the two clouds have different star formation activities. We also demonstrate how the viewing angle of California can substantially change the cloud's position in the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. This underlines the importance of 3D information in interpreting star formation relations and challenges studies that rely solely on the column density thresholds to determine star formation activities in molecular clouds. Finally, we provide accurate distance estimates to multiple lines of sight towards various parts of the two clouds., Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

The kinematics of molecular gas are crucial for setting the stage for star formation. One key question related to the kinematic properties of gas is how they depend on the spatial scale. We aim to describe the CO spectra, velocity dispersions, and especially the linewidth-size relation, of molecular gas from cloud (parsec-) scales to kiloparsec scales in a complete region within the Milky Way disk. We utilise the census of molecular clouds within 2 kpc from our earlier work, together with CO emission data for them from the literature. We study the kinematics and the Larson's relations for the sample of individual clouds. We also mimic a face-on view of the Milky Way and analyse the kinematics of the clouds within apertures of 0.25-2 kpc in size. In this way, we describe the scale-dependency of the CO gas kinematics and Larson's relations. We describe the spectra of CO gas at cloud scales and in apertures between 0.25-2 kpc in our survey area. The spectra within the apertures are relatively symmetric but show non-Gaussian high-velocity wings. At cloud-scales, our sample shows a linewidth-size relation \sigma_v=1.5*R^{0.3\pm0.1} with a large scatter. The mass-size relation in the sample of clouds is M_{CO}= 794*R^{1.5\pm0.5}. The relations are also present for the apertures at kpc-scales. A suggestive dependency on galactic environment is seen, with apertures closer to the Galactic centre and the Sagittarius spiral arm having slightly higher velocity dispersions. We explore the possible effect of a diffuse component in the survey area, and find that such a component would widen the CO spectra and could flatten the linewidth-size relation. Understanding the nature of the possible diffuse CO component and its effects on observations is crucial for connecting Galactic and extragalactic data., Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

The Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey has performed a multi-epoch near-infrared imaging of the inner Galactic plane. High-fidelity photometric catalogs are needed to utilize the data. We aim at producing a deep, point-spread-function (PSF) photometric catalog for the VVV survey J, H, and Ks band data. Specifically, we aim at taking advantage of all the epochs of the survey to reach high limiting magnitudes. We develop an automatic PSF-fitting pipeline based on the DaoPHOT algorithm and perform photometry on the stacked VVV images in J, H, and Ks bands. We present a PSF photometric catalog in the Vega system that contains about 926 million sources in the J, H, and Ks filters. About 10% of the sources are flagged as possible spurious detections. The 5 sigma limiting magnitudes of the sources with high reliability are about 20.8, 19.5, and 18.7 mag in the J, H, and Ks band, respectively, depending on the local crowding condition. Our photometric catalog reaches on average about one magnitude deeper than the previously released PSF DoPHOT photometric catalog. It also includes less spurious detections. There are significant differences in the brightnesses of faint sources between our catalog and the previously released one. The likely origin of these differences is in the different photometric algorithms that are utilized; it is not straightforward to assess which catalog is more accurate in which situations. Our new catalog is beneficial especially for science goals that require high limiting magnitudes; our catalog reaches such in fields that have a relatively uniform source number density. Overall, the limiting magnitudes and completeness are different in the fields with different crowding conditions., Comment: 19 pages, 22 figures, and 2 tables. Accepted by A&A

We determine the physical properties and turbulence driving mode of molecular clouds formed in numerical simulations of a Milky Way-type disc galaxy with parsec-scale resolution. The clouds form through gravitational fragmentation of the gas, leading to average values for mass, radii and velocity dispersion in good agreement with observations of Milky Way clouds. The driving parameter (b) for the turbulence within each cloud is characterised by the ratio of the density contrast (sigma_rho) to the average Mach number (Mach) within the cloud, b = sigma_rho/Mach. As shown in previous works, b ~ 1/3 indicates solenoidal (divergence-free) driving and b ~ 1 indicates compressive (curl-free) driving. We find that the average b value of all the clouds formed in the simulations has a lower limit of b > 0.2. Importantly, we find that b has a broad distribution, covering values from purely solenoidal to purely compressive driving. Tracking the evolution of individual clouds reveals that the b value for each cloud does not vary significantly over their lifetime. Finally, we perform a resolution study with minimum cell sizes of 8, 4, 2 and 1 pc and find that the average b value increases with increasing resolution. Therefore, we conclude that our measured b values are strictly lower limits and that a resolution better than 1 pc is required for convergence. However, regardless of the resolution, we find that b varies by factors of a few in all cases, which means that the effective driving mode alters significantly from cloud to cloud., 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, more info: https://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~chfeder/pubs/turb_driv_gal/turb_driv_gal.html

[Abridged] We describe the near-infrared reddening signature of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in external galaxies. In particular, we examine the E(J-H) and E(H-K) color-excesses, and the effective extinction law observed in discrete GMC regions. We also study the effect of the relative scale height of the GMC distribution to the color-excesses, and to the observed mass function of GMCs. We perform Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations with 3D models of stellar radiation and clumpy dust distributions, resembling a face-on geometry. The scattered light is included in the models, and near-infrared color maps are calculated from the simulated data. The effective near-infrared reddening law, i.e. the ratio E(J-H)/E(H-K), has a value close to unity in GMC regions. The ratio depends on the relative scale height of GMCs, xi, and for xi values 0.1...0.75 we find the typical ratios of 0.6...1.1. The effective extinction law turns out to be very flat in GMC regions. We find the ratios of apparent extinctions of A(H)/A(K)=1.35...1.55 and A(J)/A(H)=1.15. The effect of the scattered flux on the effective reddening law, as well as on the effective extinction law, is significant. Regarding the GMC mass function, we find no correlation between the input and observed slopes of the mass functions. Rather, the observed slope reflects the parameter $\xi$ and the dynamical range of the mass function. We estimate that only a fraction of 10...20 % of the total mass of GMCs is recovered, if the observed color-excess values are transformed to masses using the Galactic reddening law. In the case of individual clouds the fraction can vary between ~0...50 %., Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Added missing histograms in Fig. 5