Browsing by Author "Menten, K. M."

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    Gas, dust, and the CO-to-molecular gas conversion factor in low-metallicity starbursts⋆
    (2023) Hunt, L. K.; Belfiore, F.; Lelli, F.; Draine, B. T.; Marasco, A.; Garcia-Burillo, S.; Venturi, G.; Combes, F.; Weiss, A.; Henkel, C.; Menten, K. M.; Annibali, F.; Casasola, V.; Cignoni, M.; McLeod, A.; Tosi, M.; Beltran, M.; Concas, A.; Cresci, G.; Ginolfi, M.; Kumari, N.; Mannucci, F.
    The factor relating CO emission to molecular hydrogen column density, X-CO, is still subject to uncertainty, in particular at low metallicity. In this paper, to quantify X-CO at two different spatial resolutions, we exploited a dust-based method together with ALMA 12-m and ACA data and H I maps of three nearby metal-poor starbursts, NGC 625, NGC 1705, and NGC 5253. Dust opacity at 250 pc resolution was derived based on dust temperatures estimated by fitting two-temperature modified blackbodies to Herschel PACS data. By using the HI maps, we were then able to estimate dust-to-gas ratios in the regions dominated by atomic gas, and, throughout the galaxy, to infer total gas column densities and H-2 column densities as the difference with HI. Finally, from the ACA CO(1-0) maps, we derived X-CO. We used a similar technique with 40 pc ALMA 12-m data for the three galaxies, but instead derived dust attenuation at 40 pc resolution from reddening maps based on VLT/MUSE data. At 250 pc resolution, we find X-CO  & SIM; 10(22) - 10(23) cm(-2)/K km s(-1), 5-1000 times the Milky Way value, with much larger values than would be expected from a simple metallicity dependence. Instead, at 40 pc resolution, X-CO again shows large variation, but is roughly consistent with a power-law metallicity dependence, given the Z  & SIM; 1/3 Z(& ODOT;) metal abundances of our targets. The large scatter in both estimations could imply additional parameter dependence, which we have investigated by comparing X-CO with the observed velocity-integrated brightness temperatures, I-CO, as predicted by recent simulations. Indeed, larger X-CO is significantly correlated with smaller I-CO, but with slightly different slopes and normalizations than predicted by theory. Such behavior can be attributed to the increasing fraction of CO-faint (or dark) H-2 gas with lower spatial resolution (larger beams). This confirms the idea the X-CO is multivariate, depending not only on metallicity but also on the CO brightness temperature and beam size. Future work is needed to consolidate these empirical results by sampling galaxies with different metal abundances observed at varying spatial resolutions.
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    OGHReS: star formation in the outer galaxy (ℓ=250°-280°)
    (2024) Urquhart, J. S.; Koenig, C.; Colombo, D.; Karska, A.; Wyrowski, F.; Menten, K. M.; Moore, T. J. T.; Brand, J.; Elia, D.; Giannetti, A.; Leurini, S.; Figueira, M.; Lee, M. -y; Dumke, M.
    We have used data from the Outer Galaxy High-Resolution Survey (OGHReS) to refine the velocities, distances, and physical properties of a large sample of 3584 clumps detected in far-infrared/submillimetre emission in the Hi-GAL survey located in the & ell; = 250 degrees-280 degrees region of the Galactic plane. Using (CO)-C-12 and (CO)-C-13 spectra, we have determined reliable velocities to 3412 clumps (95 per cent of the sample). In comparison to the velocities from the Hi-GAL catalogue, we find good agreement for 80 per cent of the sample (within 5 km s(-1)). Using the higher resolution and sensitivity of OGHReS has allowed us to correct the velocity for 632 clumps and provide velocities for 687 clumps for which no velocity had been previously allocated. The velocities are used with a rotation curve to refine the distances to the clumps and to calculate the clumps' properties using a distance-dependent gas-to-dust ratio. We have determined reliable physical parameters for 3200 outer Galaxy dense clumps (similar to 90 per cent of the Hi-GAL sources in the region). We find a trend of decreasing luminosity-to-mass ratio with increasing Galactocentric distance, suggesting the star formation efficiency is lower in the outer Galaxy or that it is resulting in more lower mass stars than in the inner Galaxy. We also find a similar surface density for protostellar clumps located in the inner and outer Galaxy, revealing that the surface density requirements for star formation are the same across the Galactic disc.