A complete 12CO 2--1 map of M51 with HERA: II. Total gas surface densities and gravitational stability

Abstract

To date the onset of large-scale star formation in galaxies and its link to gravitational stability of the galactic disk have not been fully understood. The nearby face-on spiral galaxy M51 is an ideal target for studying this subject. This paper combines CO, dust, HI, and stellar maps of M51 and its companion galaxy to study the H2/HI transition, the gas-to-dust ratios, and the stability of the disk against gravitational collapse. We combine maps of the molecular gas using 12CO 2--1 map HERA/IRAM-30m data and HI VLA data to study the total gas surface density and the phase transition of atomic to molecular gas. The total gas surface density is compared to the dust surface density from 850 micron SCUBA data. Taking into account the velocity dispersions of the molecular and atomic gas, and the stellar surface densities derived from the 2MASS K-band survey, we derive the total Toomre Q parameter of the disk. The gas surface density in the spiral arms is approximately 2-3 higher compared to that of the interarm regions. The ratio of molecular to atomic surface density shows a nearly power-law dependence on the hydrostatic pressure P_hydro. The gas surface density distribution in M51 shows an underlying exponential distribution with a scale length of h_gas=7.6 kpc representing 55% of the total gas mass, comparable to the properties of the exponential dust disk. In contrast to the velocity widths observed in HI, the CO velocity dispersion shows enhanced line widths in the spiral arms compared to the interarm regions. The contribution of the stellar component in the Toomre Q-parameter analysis is significant and lowers the combined Q-parameter Q_tot by up to 70% towards the threshold for gravitational instability. The value of Q_tot varies from 1.5-3 in radial averages. A map of Q_tot shows values around 1 on the spiral arms.

15 pages, 15 figures, accepted by A&A for publication

References in corpus (7)

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• A complete 12CO 2-1 map of M51 with HERA: I. Radial averages of CO, HI, and radio continuum
• Kinematics of Spiral Arm Streaming in M51
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• CO emission from candidate photo-dissociation regions in M81

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• The IBISCO survey: I. Multiphase discs and winds in the Seyfert galaxy Markarian 509
• A spatially resolved radio spectral study of the galaxy M 51
• The Evolution of Interacting Spiral Galaxy NGC 5194
• Photoelectric heating effects on the evolution of luminous disk galaxies
• Galactic magnetic fields II. Applying the model to nearby galaxies