Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21714710w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #147.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Star formation occurs primarily within molecular clouds, and the raw material for molecular cloud formation is the reservoir of neutral hydrogen (HI) gas present in star forming galaxies. Thus, understanding how and where the HI is converted into molecular gas is a key step in our understanding of the star formation process. At low metallicities, the key tracer of molecular gas, CO, is not detected. Identifying narrow line HI emission (e.g., Young et al. 1996, 1997) provides a potential tracer of the molecular phase by tracing the cold HI gas . The cold HI is believed to be a necessary phase in converting the ubiquitous warm HI gas into cold molecular gas. In the current study, we have characterized the locations of
narrow HI emission through ine-of-sight spectra of HI line maps taken from the Very Large Array - ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (VLA-ANGST) and The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey (THINGS) projects. We detect narrow HI emission in every galaxy surveyed where the signal to noise in a given spectrum is high enough ( 15-20) to provide statistically viable fits. The detected narrow HI emission constitutes 1-20% of the total surveyed HI in a given galaxy. The locations of the cold HI gas can be compared with tracers of recent star formation to better understand the star formation process.
Dalcanton Julianne J.
Ott Jorgen
Skillman Evan
Stilp Adrienne
Walter Fabian
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