Molecular Clouds in the Nucleus of IC 342: CO Isotope Observations

Details Molecular Clouds in the Nucleus of IC 342: CO Isotope Observations Molecular Clouds in the Nucleus of IC 342: CO Isotope Observations

May 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aas...192.6901m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 192nd AAS Meeting, #69.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.923

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present aperture synthesis maps of the (13) CO(2-1), C(18) O(1-0), C(18) O(2-1) transitions of in the nucleus of the nearby starburst galaxy, IC 342. Because of its lower optical depth, (13) CO(2-1) better traces the density and temperature distribution of the bulk of the molecular gas in the regions associated with the starburst nucleus than do the more abundant (12) CO transitions, which trace the warmer, ``PDR'' regions, rather than the cooler cloud cores. These three transitions show that the emission is confined to the peaks found in the (12) CO transitions. The (13) CO(2-1)/(13) CO(1-0) ratio varies smoothly across the region and has values ranging from 0.3 - 1.7. These very low line ratios are interpreted as due to a combination of excitation temperatures lower than the (12) CO and moderate ( ~ a few) (13) CO opacities. There is one region with ratios significantly > 1 in which the (13) CO appears to be optically thin. Because the (13) CO appears to be optically thick over much the central molecular region, to accurately estimate the total column density we have observed C(18) O. This region is confirmed to be optically thin by the (18) CO. The masses obtained from C(18) O are consistent with the those found using the standard (12) CO conversion factor.

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