Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

CO Images of the Central Regions of 20 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

FREE

Kazushi Sakamoto1,2, Sachiko K. Okumura1, Sumio Ishizuki3 and N. Z. Scoville2

Show affiliations


We report a CO(J = 1-0) aperture-synthesis survey of the central regions of 20 nearby spiral galaxies. The sample is selected on the basis of inclination, single-dish CO flux, and lack of significant dynamical perturbation. No selection is made on the basis of their nuclear activity, starburst, or infrared luminosity. The observations have been made using the Nobeyama and Owens Valley millimeter arrays, with typical resolutions of 4'' (300 pc) and 20 km s-1, and sensitivities of ~30 mJy beam-1 for a 20 km s-1 channel. In this paper, we present integrated intensity and mean velocity maps, azimuthally averaged radial distributions, and position-velocity plots. Most galaxies in the sample have scale lengths for the radial CO distribution that are much smaller in the nuclear regions than in the outer disks. Typically, the CO emission falls to 1/e of the central peak value at radii of ~500 pc. This is significantly smaller than the scale lengths for the global CO distributions in the galactic disks. CO position-velocity diagrams exhibit a steep rise in rotation velocity, dV/dr ~ 1 km s-1 pc-1, in the central regions of most galaxies. The CO line width typically reaches ~95% of the overall H I line width within a radius of 1 kpc. This steep rise in the rotation velocity mainly reflects the highly concentrated mass distributions in the galactic centers, though it may well be partly due to noncircular motions in barred galaxies. In a number of galaxies, the position-velocity diagrams show a small central hole (d lsim 100 pc) in CO emission. In many galaxies, we detect CO clumps of subkiloparsec size which may be giant molecular associations (GMAs). In the Appendix, we demonstrate that small holes at the galactic center can be readily detected in position-velocity diagrams even when they are smaller than the spatial resolution of the data.


Subject headings

galaxies: active; galaxies: ISM; galaxies: nuclei; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: starburst


Dates

Issue 2 (1999 October)

Received 1999 February 9, accepted for publication 1999 May 12



  1. CO Images of the Central Regions of 20 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

    Kazushi Sakamoto et al. 1999 ApJS 124 403

  2. Deuterium thermal desorption from FeAl thin films

    R Checchetto et al 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 6307

  3. Chandra Detection of the First X-Ray Forest along the Line of Sight to Markarian 421

    Fabrizio Nicastro et al. 2005 ApJ 629 700

  4. An XMM-Newton Observation of the High Magnetic Field Radio Pulsar PSR B0154+61

    M. E. Gonzalez et al 2004 ApJ 610 L37

  5. Microscopic structure of the 90° and 30° partial dislocations in gallium arsenide

    João F Justo et al 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 12749

  6. Random tilings: concepts and examples

    C Richard et al 1998 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 31 6385

  7. Structure in the parameter dependence of order and chaos for the quadratic map

    Brian R Hunt and Edward Ott 1997 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 30 7067

  8. Dynamical percolation through the Voronoïtessellations

    N Pittet 1999 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 32 4611

  9. The Star Formation Rate and Dense Molecular Gas in Galaxies

    Yu Gao and Philip M. Solomon 2004 ApJ 606 271

  10. The Interstellar Medium of Gamma-Ray Burst Host Galaxies. I. Echelle Spectra of Swift GRB Afterglows

    J. X. Prochaska et al. 2007 ApJS 168 231

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.