Galactic structure based on the ATLASGAL 870mum survey

Abstract

The ATLASGAL 870mum continuum survey conducted with the APEX telescope is the first survey covering the whole inner Galactic plane (60deg>l>-60deg & b<1.5deg) in submm continuum emission tracing the cold dust of dense and young star-forming regions. Here, we present the overall distribution of sources within our Galactic disk. The submm continuum emission is confined to a narrow range around the galactic plane, but shifted on average by ~0.07deg below the plane. Source number counts show strong enhancements toward the Galactic center, the spiral arms and toward prominent star-forming regions. Comparing the distribution of ATLASGAL dust continuum emission to that of young intermediate- to high-mass young stellar objects (YSOs) derived from Spitzer data, we find similarities as well as differences. In particular, the distribution of submm dust continuum emission is significantly more confined to the plane than the YSO distribution (FWHM of 0.7 and 1.1deg, corresponding to mean physical scale heights of approximately 46 and 80pc, respectively). While this difference may partly be caused by the large extinction from the dense submm cores, gradual dispersal of stellar distributions after their birth could also contribute to this effect. Compared to other tracers of Galactic structure, the ATLASGAL data are strongly confined to a narrow latitude strip around the Galactic plane.

7 pages, 6 figures, accepted for the Astrophysical Journal, high-resolution version at http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/homes/beuther/papers.html

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Cited by in corpus (46)

• Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
• The WISE Catalog of Galactic HII Regions
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• ATLASGAL - Compact source catalogue: 330 < l < 21 degrees
• Hi-GAL, the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey: photometric maps and compact source catalogues. First data release for Inner Milky Way: +68°> l > -70°
• The ATLASGAL survey: a catalog of dust condensations in the Galactic plane
• ATLASGAL --- Environments of 6.7\,GHz methanol masers
• ATLASGAL --- properties of compact HII regions and their natal clumps
• The Bones of the Milky Way
• The Milky Way Project: A statistical study of massive star formation associated with infrared bubbles
• Distributed star formation throughout the Galactic Center cloud Sgr B2
• ATLASGAL - Kinematic distances and the dense gas mass distribution of the inner Galaxy
• The Skeleton of the Milky Way
• Search for starless clumps in the ATLASGAL survey
• Giant molecular clouds and massive star formation in the southern milky way
• Stellar clusters in the inner Galaxy and their correlation with cold dust emission
• Offset between stellar spiral arms and gas arms of the Milky Way
• The morphology of the Milky Way - I. Reconstructing CO maps from simulations in fixed potentials
• Catalog of observed tangents to the spiral arms in the Milky Way galaxy
• The Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. X. A Complete Spectroscopic Catalog of Dense Molecular Gas Observed toward 1.1 mm Dust Continuum Sources with 7.5 <= l <= 194 degrees
• Characterization of Infrared Dark Clouds -- NH${}_3$ Observations of an Absorption-contrast Selected IRDC Sample
• Fragmentation, infall, and outflow around the showcase massive protostar NGC7538 IRS1 at 500 AU resolution
• The HI/OH/Recombination line survey of the inner Milky Way (THOR)
• GLOSTAR -- Radio Source Catalog I: $28^{\circ }<\text{l}<36^{\circ }$ and $|b|<1^{\circ }$
• SEDIGISM: The kinematics of ATLASGAL filaments
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• Strong excess Faraday rotation on the Inside of the Sagittarius spiral arm
• A Galactic Plane Defined by the Milky Way HII Region Distribution
• SEDIGISM-ATLASGAL: Dense Gas Fraction and Star Formation Efficiency Across the Galactic Disk
• Gas Kinematics and Star Formation in the Filamentary IRDC G34.43+0.24
• The role of spiral arms in Milky Way star formation
• The SEDIGISM survey: a search for molecular outflows
• A substructure inside spiral arms, and a mirror image across the Galactic Meridian
• The Milky Way Project and ATLASGAL: The distribution and physical properties of cold clumps near infrared bubbles
• Autonomous Gaussian decomposition of the Galactic Ring Survey. I. Global statistics and properties of the 13CO emission data
• Kinematics and star formation toward W33: a central hub as a hub--filament system
• The 6-GHz multibeam maser survey III: comparison between the MMB and HOPS
• ATLASGAL -- Star forming efficiencies and the Galactic star formation rate
• Catalog of spiral arm Tangents (Galactic Longitudes) in the Milky Way, and the Age Gradient based on various arm tangents
• Synthetic observations of spiral arm tracers of a simulated Milky Way analog
• The GBT Diffuse Ionized Gas Survey: Tracing the Diffuse Ionized Gas around the Giant HII Region W43
• Characterization of dense Planck clumps observed with Herschel and SCUBA-2
• Large-scale latitude distortions of the inner Milky Way Disk from the Herschel/Hi-GAL Survey
• The southern molecular environment of SNR G18.8+0.3
• Mass Segregation in the CMZoom Survey