Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 1987
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987nascp2466..197y&link_type=abstract
Star formation in galaxies, Proceedings of a conference at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, June 16
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
19
Galactic Structure, Infrared Astronomy, Molecular Clouds, Star Formation, Stellar Luminosity, Carbon Monoxide, Gas Density, H Alpha Line, Line Spectra, Space Surveillance (Ground Based), Thermal Emission
Scientific paper
The CO distributions and total molecular content of 160 galaxies were observed using the 14 meter millimeter telescope of the FCRAO. For the luminous, relatively face-on Sc galaxies, the azimuthally averaged CO distributions are centrally peaked, while for the Sb and Sa galaxies the Co distributions often exhibit central CO holes up to 5 kpc across. None of the Sc galaxies have CO distributions which resemble the Milky Way. A general correlation was found between total CO and IR luminosities in galaxies. The scatter in this relation is highly correlated with dust temperature. No strong correlation of IR luminosities was found with HI masses, and it was thereby concluded that the infrared emission is more directly tied to the molecular content of galaxies. It is suggested that galaxies which have high Star Formation Effiencies (SFEs) produce more stars per unit molecular mass, thereby increasing the average temperature of the dust in the star forming regions. Irregular galaxies and galaxies previously identified as mergers have the highest observed star formation efficiencies. For the mergers, evidence was found that the IR/CO luminosity ratio increases with the merger age estimated by Joseph and Wright (1985).
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