Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993a%26a...267l..47b&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 267, no. 2, p. L47-L50.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
14
Cooling Flows (Astrophysics), Elliptical Galaxies, Galactic Evolution, Galactic Mass, Molecular Gases, Line Spectra, Radio Spectra, Stellar Mass Accretion, Stellar Models
Scientific paper
We have observed the giant elliptical M87 in CO(10) at 115 GHz and CO(2-1) at 230 GHz. The lack of CO emission places a conservative upper limit of 10 exp 7 solar masses of molecular gas within 2 kpc of the nucleus. The radio continuum source is detected at both 115 and 230 GHz, with fluxes of 2.3 and 1.0 Jy within the 23 and 13 arcsec beams, respectively. Our low limit on the amount of H2 gas effectively precludes the proposed scenario in which a large fraction of the unseen mass in the central regions is in the form of a cold and dense molecular gas. Together with a previously derived upper limit to the HI column density, our results indicate that there may be no neutral interstellar component in the line of sight towards M87. If a cooling flow exists in M87, then the accretion must be taking place at a very low rate or be a recent phenomenon. In any case, the cooling flow is not fueling star formation which provides the most obvious sink for the gas. A spectral index of -0.79, derived from long wavelength radio continuum data, fits the 25, 60 and 100 micron IRAS fluxes perfectly. We find that about 40 and 25 percent of the 115 and 230 GHz fluxes expected from the extrapolation are contained in the 23 and 13 arcsec telescope beams, respectively.
Braine Jonathan
Wiklind Thomas
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