scholarly journals A Morphological Classification of 18,190 Molecular Clouds Identified in 12CO Data from the MWISP Survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 257 (2) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Lixia Yuan ◽  
Ji Yang ◽  
Fujun Du ◽  
Xunchuan Liu ◽  
Shaobo Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract We attempt to visually classify the morphologies of 18,190 molecular clouds, which are identified in the 12CO(1–0) spectral line data over ∼450 deg2 of the second Galactic quadrant from the Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting project. Using the velocity-integrated intensity maps of the 12CO(1–0) emission, molecular clouds are first divided into unresolved and resolved ones. The resolved clouds are further classified as nonfilaments or filaments. Among the 18,190 molecular clouds, ∼25% are unresolved, ∼64% are nonfilaments, and ∼11% are filaments. In the terms of the integrated flux of 12CO(1–0) spectra of all 18,190 molecular clouds, ∼90% are from filaments, ∼9% are from nonfilaments, and the remaining ∼1% are from unresolved sources. Although nonfilaments are dominant in the number of the discrete molecular clouds, filaments are the main contributor of 12CO emission flux. We also present the number distributions of the physical parameters of the molecular clouds in our catalog, including their angular sizes, velocity spans, peak intensities of 12CO(1–0) emission, and 12CO(1–0) total fluxes. We find that there is a systematic difference between the angular sizes of the nonfilaments and filaments, with the filaments tending to have larger angular scales. The H2 column densities of them are not significantly different. We also discuss the observational effects, such as those induced by the finite spatial resolution, beam dilution, and line-of-sight projection, on the morphological classification of molecular clouds in our sample.

2017 ◽  
Vol 608 ◽  
pp. A98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Salomé ◽  
P. Salomé ◽  
M.-A. Miville-Deschênes ◽  
F. Combes ◽  
S. Hamer

NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) is one of the best targets to study AGN feedback in the local Universe. At 13.5 kpc from the galaxy, optical filaments with recent star formation lie along the radio jet direction. This region is a testbed for positive feedback, here through jet-induced star formation. Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) observations have revealed strong CO emission in star-forming regions and in regions with no detected tracers of star formation activity. In cases where star formation is observed, this activity appears to be inefficient compared to the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. We used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to map the 12CO(1–0) emission all along the filaments of NGC 5128 at a resolution of 1.3′′ ~ 23.8pc. We find that the CO emission is clumpy and is distributed in two main structures: (i) the Horseshoe complex, located outside the HI cloud, where gas is mostly excited by shocks and where no star formation is observed, and (ii) the Vertical filament, located at the edge of the HI shell, which is a region of moderate star formation. We identified 140 molecular clouds using a clustering method applied to the CO data cube. A statistical study reveals that these clouds have very similar physical properties, such as size, velocity dispersion, and mass, as in the inner Milky Way. However, the range of radius available with the present ALMA observations does not enable us to investigate whether or not the clouds follow the Larson relation. The large virial parameter αvir of the clouds suggests that gravity is not dominant and clouds are not gravitationally unstable. Finally, the total energy injection in the northern filaments of Centaurus A is of the same order as in the inner part of the Milky Way. The strong CO emission detected in the northern filaments is an indication that the energy injected by the jet acts positively in the formation of dense molecular gas. The relatively high virial parameter of the molecular clouds suggests that the injected kinetic energy is too strong for star formation to be efficient. This is particularly the case in the horseshoe complex, where the virial parameter is the largest and where strong CO is detected with no associated star formation. This is the first evidence of AGN positive feedback in the sense of forming molecular gas through shocks, associated with low star formation efficiency due to turbulence injection by the interaction with the radio jet.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (4) ◽  
pp. 4663-4673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattia C Sormani ◽  
Robin G Treß ◽  
Simon C O Glover ◽  
Ralf S Klessen ◽  
Ashley T Barnes ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Observations of molecular gas near the Galactic Centre (|l| < 10°, |b| < 1°) reveal the presence of a distinct population of enigmatic compact clouds that are characterized by extreme velocity dispersions ($\Delta v \gt 100\, {\rm km\, s^{-1}}$). These extended velocity features are very prominent in the data cubes and dominate the kinematics of molecular gas just outside the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). The prototypical example of such a cloud is Bania Clump 2. We show that similar features are naturally produced in simulations of gas flow in a realistic barred potential. We analyse the structure of the features obtained in the simulations and use this to interpret the observations. We find that the features arise from collisions between material that has been infalling rapidly along the dust lanes of the Milky Way bar and material that belongs to one of the following two categories: (i) material that has ‘overshot’ after falling down the dust lanes on the opposite side; (ii) material which is part of the CMZ. Both types of collisions involve gas with large differences in the line-of-sight velocities, which is what produces the observed extreme velocity dispersions. Examples of both categories can be identified in the observations. If our interpretation is correct, we are directly witnessing (a) collisions of clouds with relative speeds of $\sim 200\, {\rm km\, s^{-1}}$ and (b) the process of accretion of fresh gas onto the CMZ.


1984 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 399-400
Author(s):  
M. Rubio ◽  
R. Cohen ◽  
J. Montani

The dwarf Magellanic irregular galaxies apparently have a very low molecular content compared to the Milky Way. In the LMC, molecular clouds are fairly common, but the ratio of molecular to atomic gas is at least 5 times lower than in the Galaxy (Cohen et al. 1984). Elmegreen et al. (1980) searched for CO in 6 dwarf galaxies and failed to detect any emission even though their sensitivity was adequate to detect galactic giant molecular clouds placed at the distance of these galaxies. Israel (1984) observed the J=2→1 transition of CO at 15 points in the Small Magellanic Cloud and detected CO emission from five of them, but at a level two to six times lower than typical galactic values.


1997 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 659-662
Author(s):  
Wolfgang J. Duschl ◽  
Susanne von Linden

AbstractWe have analyzed the distribution of giant molecular clouds and their radial velocities in the inner ~ 300 pc of the Milky Way in order to deduce the characteristic properties of its large scale motion. We find radial inflow of matter towards the Galactic Center of ~ 10−2 M⊙/yr. Moreover, we have determined the position of individual clouds along the line of sight.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (S322) ◽  
pp. 170-171
Author(s):  
Volker Tolls ◽  
Howard A. Smith ◽  

AbstractWe present a snapshot of our ongoing investigation of molecular clouds in Clump 2 located in the Galactic Bar region at a projected distance of ~400pc from the Galactic Center. We show that the analysis of the Clump 2 molecular clouds is complicated because of many fore- and background clouds in the line of sight. Of all clouds, IGGC 22 is the most interesting one, showing very high dust column densities, significant high-J CO emission, and, potentially harbors star formations as eluded to by the detection of [OIII] emission.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S292) ◽  
pp. 104-104
Author(s):  
Alisher S. Hojaev ◽  
Anna A. Kovaleva ◽  
Nigina R. Alimova

AbstractThe first attempt at a census of all molecular clouds (MoC) in the Milky Way observed to date is presented. The catalog of MoC includes all observed and estimated physical parameters. The data will be used to compute a model of the MoC system in the Galaxy.


1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 171-172
Author(s):  
Th. Schmidt-Kaler

The integralNHof neutral-hydrogen density along the line of sight is determined from the Kootwijk and Sydney surveys. The run ofNHwith galactic longitude agrees well with that of thermal continuous radiation and that of the optical surface brightness of the Milky Way.


Author(s):  
S. N. Bogdanov ◽  
◽  
S. Ju. Babaev ◽  
A. V. Strazhnov ◽  
A. B. Stroganov ◽  
...  

1983 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 133-134
Author(s):  
Frank N. Bash

Bash and Peters (1976) suggested that giant molecular clouds (GMC's) can be viewed as ballistic particles launched from the two-armed spiral-shock (TASS) wave with orbits influenced only by the overall galactic gravitational potential perturbed by the spiral gravitational potential in the arms. For GMC's in the Milky Way, the model predicts that the radial velocity observed from the Sun increases with age (time since launch). We showed that the terminal velocity of CO observed from l ≃ 30° to l ≃ 60° can be understood if all GMC's are born in the spiral pattern given by Yuan (1969) and live 30 × 106 yrs. Older GMC's were predicted to have radial velocities which exceed observed terminal velocities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (2) ◽  
pp. 1828-1846
Author(s):  
Burger Becker ◽  
Mattia Vaccari ◽  
Matthew Prescott ◽  
Trienko Grobler

ABSTRACT The morphological classification of radio sources is important to gain a full understanding of galaxy evolution processes and their relation with local environmental properties. Furthermore, the complex nature of the problem, its appeal for citizen scientists, and the large data rates generated by existing and upcoming radio telescopes combine to make the morphological classification of radio sources an ideal test case for the application of machine learning techniques. One approach that has shown great promise recently is convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Literature, however, lacks two major things when it comes to CNNs and radio galaxy morphological classification. First, a proper analysis of whether overfitting occurs when training CNNs to perform radio galaxy morphological classification using a small curated training set is needed. Secondly, a good comparative study regarding the practical applicability of the CNN architectures in literature is required. Both of these shortcomings are addressed in this paper. Multiple performance metrics are used for the latter comparative study, such as inference time, model complexity, computational complexity, and mean per class accuracy. As part of this study, we also investigate the effect that receptive field, stride length, and coverage have on recognition performance. For the sake of completeness, we also investigate the recognition performance gains that we can obtain by employing classification ensembles. A ranking system based upon recognition and computational performance is proposed. MCRGNet, Radio Galaxy Zoo, and ConvXpress (novel classifier) are the architectures that best balance computational requirements with recognition performance.


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