Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256

Nathan Brunetti; Christine D. Wilson; Hao He; Jiayi Sun; Adam K. Leroy; Erik Rosolowsky; Ashley Bemis; Frank Bigiel; Brent Groves; Toshiki Saito; Eva Schinnerer

doi:10.1093/mnras/stae890

Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256

Nathan Brunetti
, Christine D. Wilson
, Hao He
, Jiayi Sun
, Adam K. Leroy
, Erik Rosolowsky
, Ashley Bemis
, Frank Bigiel
, Brent Groves
, Toshiki Saito
, Eva Schinnerer

Physics And Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present observations of the central 9 kpc of the Antennae merger (NGC 4038/9) at 55 pc resolution in the CO (2-1) line obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We use a pixel-based analysis to compare the gas properties in the Antennae to those in 70 nearby spiral galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA surv e y, as well as the merger and nearest luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256. Compared to PHANGS-ALMA galaxies at matched spatial resolution, the molecular gas in the Antennae exhibits some of the highest surface densities, velocity dispersions, peak brightness temperatures, and turbulent pressures. Ho we ver, the virial parameters in the Antennae are consistent with many of the PHANGS-ALMA galaxies. NGC 3256 has similar gas surface densities but higher nuclear velocity dispersions than the Antennae, as well as higher system-wide peak brightness temperatures and virial parameters. NGC 3256 is at a later stage in the merging process than the Antennae, which may result in more intense merger-driven gas flows that could drive up the turbulence in the gas. The high virial parameters in NGC 3256 may indicate that this increased turbulence is suppressing future star formation as NGC 3256 mo v es out of the starburst phase. In comparison, the relatively normal virial parameters in the Antennae may imply that it is about to undergo a new burst of star formation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	597-612
Number of pages	16
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	530
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae890
State	Published - May 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

This research made use of astropy , a community-developed core python package for Astronomy ( http://www.astropy.org , Astropy Collaboration , ). This research also made use of the scipy (Virtanen et al. ), matplotlib (Hunter ), numpy (van der Walt, Colbert & Varoquaux ), pandas (McKinney ), jupyter notebook (Kluyver et al. ), and spectral-cube (Ginsburg et al. ) python packages. This research has made use of the Cube Analysis and Rendering Tool for Astronomy ( carta ) (Comrie et al. ). This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System. This research has made use of the VizieR catalogue access tool (Ochsenbein, Bauer & Marcout ). This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France (Wenger et al. ). We thank the referee for comments that improved the presentation and discussion of the paper. The research of NB and HH is partially supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through the New Technologies for Canadian Observatories program. The research of CDW and ER is supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and also for CDW by the Canada Research Chairs program. JS acknowledges support by NSERC through a Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) National Fellowship. FB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 726384/Empire). ES acknowledges funding from the ERC under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 694343).

Funders	Funder number
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
California Institute of Technology
Canada Excellence Research Chairs, Government of Canada
IPAC
H2020 European Research Council
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme	726384
Horizon 2020	694343

Keywords

galaxies: interactions
galaxies: ISM
galaxies: nuclei
galaxies: star forma- tion
ISM: kinematics and dynamics
submillimetre: ISM

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.1093/mnras/stae890

Cite this

Brunetti, N., Wilson, C. D., He, H., Sun, J., Leroy, A. K., Rosolowsky, E., Bemis, A., Bigiel, F., Groves, B., Saito, T., & Schinnerer, E. (2024). Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 530(1), 597-612. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae890

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title = "Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256",

abstract = "We present observations of the central 9 kpc of the Antennae merger (NGC 4038/9) at 55 pc resolution in the CO (2-1) line obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We use a pixel-based analysis to compare the gas properties in the Antennae to those in 70 nearby spiral galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA surv e y, as well as the merger and nearest luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256. Compared to PHANGS-ALMA galaxies at matched spatial resolution, the molecular gas in the Antennae exhibits some of the highest surface densities, velocity dispersions, peak brightness temperatures, and turbulent pressures. Ho we ver, the virial parameters in the Antennae are consistent with many of the PHANGS-ALMA galaxies. NGC 3256 has similar gas surface densities but higher nuclear velocity dispersions than the Antennae, as well as higher system-wide peak brightness temperatures and virial parameters. NGC 3256 is at a later stage in the merging process than the Antennae, which may result in more intense merger-driven gas flows that could drive up the turbulence in the gas. The high virial parameters in NGC 3256 may indicate that this increased turbulence is suppressing future star formation as NGC 3256 mo v es out of the starburst phase. In comparison, the relatively normal virial parameters in the Antennae may imply that it is about to undergo a new burst of star formation.",

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note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2024.",

year = "2024",

month = may,

doi = "10.1093/mnras/stae890",

language = "English",

volume = "530",

pages = "597--612",

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Brunetti, N, Wilson, CD, He, H, Sun, J, Leroy, AK, Rosolowsky, E, Bemis, A, Bigiel, F, Groves, B, Saito, T & Schinnerer, E 2024, 'Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 530, no. 1, pp. 597-612. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae890

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T1 - Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger

T2 - a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256

AU - Brunetti, Nathan

AU - Wilson, Christine D.

AU - He, Hao

AU - Sun, Jiayi

AU - Leroy, Adam K.

AU - Rosolowsky, Erik

AU - Bemis, Ashley

AU - Bigiel, Frank

AU - Groves, Brent

AU - Saito, Toshiki

AU - Schinnerer, Eva

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024/5

Y1 - 2024/5

N2 - We present observations of the central 9 kpc of the Antennae merger (NGC 4038/9) at 55 pc resolution in the CO (2-1) line obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We use a pixel-based analysis to compare the gas properties in the Antennae to those in 70 nearby spiral galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA surv e y, as well as the merger and nearest luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256. Compared to PHANGS-ALMA galaxies at matched spatial resolution, the molecular gas in the Antennae exhibits some of the highest surface densities, velocity dispersions, peak brightness temperatures, and turbulent pressures. Ho we ver, the virial parameters in the Antennae are consistent with many of the PHANGS-ALMA galaxies. NGC 3256 has similar gas surface densities but higher nuclear velocity dispersions than the Antennae, as well as higher system-wide peak brightness temperatures and virial parameters. NGC 3256 is at a later stage in the merging process than the Antennae, which may result in more intense merger-driven gas flows that could drive up the turbulence in the gas. The high virial parameters in NGC 3256 may indicate that this increased turbulence is suppressing future star formation as NGC 3256 mo v es out of the starburst phase. In comparison, the relatively normal virial parameters in the Antennae may imply that it is about to undergo a new burst of star formation.

AB - We present observations of the central 9 kpc of the Antennae merger (NGC 4038/9) at 55 pc resolution in the CO (2-1) line obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We use a pixel-based analysis to compare the gas properties in the Antennae to those in 70 nearby spiral galaxies from the PHANGS-ALMA surv e y, as well as the merger and nearest luminous infrared galaxy NGC 3256. Compared to PHANGS-ALMA galaxies at matched spatial resolution, the molecular gas in the Antennae exhibits some of the highest surface densities, velocity dispersions, peak brightness temperatures, and turbulent pressures. Ho we ver, the virial parameters in the Antennae are consistent with many of the PHANGS-ALMA galaxies. NGC 3256 has similar gas surface densities but higher nuclear velocity dispersions than the Antennae, as well as higher system-wide peak brightness temperatures and virial parameters. NGC 3256 is at a later stage in the merging process than the Antennae, which may result in more intense merger-driven gas flows that could drive up the turbulence in the gas. The high virial parameters in NGC 3256 may indicate that this increased turbulence is suppressing future star formation as NGC 3256 mo v es out of the starburst phase. In comparison, the relatively normal virial parameters in the Antennae may imply that it is about to undergo a new burst of star formation.

KW - galaxies: interactions

KW - galaxies: ISM

KW - galaxies: nuclei

KW - galaxies: star forma- tion

KW - ISM: kinematics and dynamics

KW - submillimetre: ISM

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85190102780

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85190102780#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stae890

DO - 10.1093/mnras/stae890

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85190102780

SN - 0035-8711

VL - 530

SP - 597

EP - 612

JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

IS - 1

ER -

Cloud-scale molecular gas properties of the ANTENNAE merger: a comparati v e study with PHANGS-ALMA galaxies and NGC 3256

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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