A molecular spiral arm segment of M51 at 3.5 arcsecond resolution

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

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Carbon Monoxide, Galactic Radio Waves, Molecular Gases, Spiral Galaxies, Emission Spectra, Interferometry, Mapping

Scientific paper

High-resolution CO observations of two 1-arcmin fields in M51 south of the nucleus are reported. The molecular spiral arm and the giant molecular associations (GMAs) are found to be well resolved at this angular resolution. The GMAs A8, A9, I1, and I2 were detected, while A4 does not stand out as a significant peak in this map. The brightness temperatures along the arm are almost equal to the typical value for Galactic GMCs, indicating either warmer gas (if the cloud areal filling factor is much lower than unity) or gas of a similar temperature to Galactic GMCs, but a high cloud areal filling factor (near unity) in M51. The 1D velocity dispersion of the molecular gas along the arms at this resolution is about 10 km/s. If the conversion factor for M51 is no more than 3 times lower than the Galactic value, then the GMAs are probably stable or marginally stable against galactic tidal forces.

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