The ALMA view of GMCs in NGC 300: Physical Properties and Scaling Relations at 10 pc Resolution

Abstract

We have conducted a ${}^{12}$CO(2-1) survey of several molecular gas complexes in the vicinity of H II regions within the spiral galaxy NGC 300 using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. Our observations attain a resolution of 10 pc and 1 km s${}^{-1}$, sufficient to fully resolve Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), and are the highest to date obtained beyond the Local Group. We use the CPROPS algorithm to identify and characterize 250 GMCs across the observed regions. GMCs in NGC 300 appear qualitatively and quantitatively similar to those in the Milky Way disk: they show an identical scaling relationship between size $R$ and linewidth $\Delta V$ ($\Delta V\propto R^{0.48\pm 0.05}$), appear to be mostly in virial equilibrium, and are consistent with having a constant surface density of $60$ M${}_{\odot }$ pc${}^{-2}$. The GMC mass spectrum is similar to those in the inner disks of spiral galaxies (including the Milky Way). Our results suggest that global galactic properties such as total stellar mass, morphology, and average metallicity may not play a major role in setting GMC properties, at least within the disks of galaxies on the star-forming main sequence. Instead, GMC properties may be more strongly influenced by local environmental factors such as the mid-plane disk pressure. In particular, in the inner disk of NGC 300 we find this pressure to be similar to that in the local Milky Way but markedly lower than that in the disk of M51 where GMCs are characterized by systematically higher surface densities and a higher coefficient for the size-linewidth relation.

40 pages, 26 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (25)

• Theory of Star Formation
• The Boston University-Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory Galactic Ring Survey
• The Resolved Properties of Extragalactic Giant Molecular Clouds
• Multi-Scale CLEAN deconvolution of radio synthesis images
• Filamentary structure of star-forming complexes
• Bias-free Measurement of Giant Molecular Cloud Properties
• Outer structure of the Galactic warp and flare: explaining the Canis Major over-density
• Extragalactic chemical abundances: do HII regions and young stars tell the same story? The case of the spiral galaxy NGC 300
• The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: FIR Emission and Cold Gas in the SMC
• ALMA Reveals the Molecular Medium Fueling the Nearest Nuclear Starburst
• Six Myths on the Virial Theorem for Interstellar Clouds
• A Portrait of Cold Gas in Galaxies at 60pc Resolution and a Simple Method to Test Hypotheses That Link Small-Scale ISM Structure to Galaxy-Scale Processes
• Giant Molecular Clouds in M31: I - Molecular Cloud Properties
• Physical Properties of Molecular Clouds at 2 parsec Resolution in the Low-Metallicity Dwarf Galaxy NGC 6822 and the Milky Way
• Millimeter-Wave Line Ratios and Sub-beam Volume Density Distributions
• Giant Molecular Clouds in the Early-Type Galaxy NGC4526
• The Varying Mass Distribution of Molecular Clouds Across M83
• Multi-Scale CLEAN: A comparison of its performance against classical CLEAN in galaxies using THINGS
• Evolutionary Description of Giant Molecular Cloud Mass Functions on Galactic Disks
• Comparative Analysis of Molecular Clouds in M31, M33 and the Milky Way
• Molecular Cloud-scale Star Formation in NGC 300
• Data Compression for the Tomo-e Gozen with Low-rank Matrix Approximation
• Does the stellar distribution flare? A comparison of stellar scale heights with LAB HI data
• Resolving Giant Molecular Clouds in NGC 300: A First Look with the Submillimeter Array
• Wide-Field ${}^{12}$CO ($J=2-1$) and ${}^{13}$CO ($J=2-1$) Observations toward the Aquila Rift and Serpens Molecular Cloud Complexes. I. Molecular Clouds and Their Physical Properties

Cited by in corpus (56)

• Star Clusters Across Cosmic Time
• The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• Giant Molecular Cloud Catalogues for PHANGS-ALMA: Methods and Initial Results
• Star clusters near and far; tracing star formation across cosmic time
• Stochastic modelling of star-formation histories II: star-formation variability from molecular clouds and gas inflow
• Heart of Darkness: the influence of galactic dynamics on quenching star formation in galaxy spheroids
• A model for the formation of stellar associations and clusters from giant molecular clouds
• The environmental dependence of the X_CO conversion factor
• The art of modeling CO, [CI], and [CII] in cosmological galaxy formation models
• Which feedback mechanisms dominate in the high-pressure environment of the Central Molecular Zone?
• Black Hole Mass Measurements of Radio Galaxies NGC 315 and NGC 4261 Using ALMA CO Observations
• Live Fast, Die Young: GMC lifetimes in the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies
• Star cluster formation and cloud dispersal by radiative feedback: dependence on metallicity and compactness
• Comparing the pre-SNe feedback and environmental pressures for 6000 HII regions across 19 nearby spiral galaxies
• The role of galactic dynamics in shaping the physical properties of giant molecular clouds in Milky Way-like galaxies
• Stellar Feedback and Resolved Stellar IFU Spectroscopy in the nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 300
• The Mass-Size Relation and the Constancy of GMC Surface Densities in the Milky Way
• Impact of relativistic jets on the star formation rate: a turbulence-regulated framework
• WISDOM Project -- IX Giant Molecular Clouds in the Lenticular Galaxy NGC4429: Effects of Shear and Tidal Forces on Clouds
• Do Spectroscopic Dense Gas Fractions Track Molecular Cloud Surface Densities?
• Great Balls of FIRE I: The formation of star clusters across cosmic time in a Milky Way-mass galaxy
• Mass Functions of Giant Molecular Clouds and Young Star Clusters in Six Nearby Galaxies
• Dense molecular gas properties on 100 pc scales across the disc of NGC 3627
• Spatial Decorrelation of Young Stars and Dense Gas as a Probe of the Star Formation-Feedback Cycle in Galaxies
• Simulations of the star-forming molecular gas in an interacting M51-like galaxy: cloud population statistics
• Bird's eye view of molecular clouds in the Milky Way: I. Column density and star formation from sub-pc to kpc scales
• What is the physics behind the Larson mass-size relation?
• Dense Gas in a Giant Molecular Filament
• Comparing the Properties of GMCs in M33 from Simulations and Observations
• Properties of giant molecular clouds in the strongly barred galaxy NGC1300
• The turbulent gas structure in the centers of NGC253 and the Milky Way
• The Probability Distribution Function of Gas Surface Density in M33
• ALMA Observations of Giant Molecular Clouds in the Starburst Dwarf Galaxy Henize 2-10
• Diagnosing the interstellar medium of galaxies with far-infrared emission lines I. The [C II] 158 microns line at z~0
• ALMA Resolves Giant Molecular Clouds in a Tidal Dwarf Galaxy
• Dependence of Molecular Cloud Samples on Angular Resolution, Sensitivity, and Algorithms
• PHANGS-ALMA: Arcsecond CO(2-1) Imaging of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
• Simultaneous Deep Measurements of CO isotopologues and Dust Emission in Giant Molecular Clouds in the Andromeda Galaxy
• Zoom-in cosmological hydrodynamical simulation of a star-forming barred, spiral galaxy at redshift z=2
• Jet-Feedback on kpc scales: a review
• 3D structure of the Milky Way out to 10 kpc from the Sun. Catalogue of large molecular clouds in the Galactic Plane
• First Resolved Dust Continuum Measurements of Individual Giant Molecular Clouds in the Andromeda Galaxy
• First results from SMAUG: Insights into star formation conditions from spatially-resolved ISM properties in TNG50
• A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE) XVII. Statistical properties of individual HII regions in unperturbed systems
• Giant molecular clouds and their Type classification in M74: Toward understanding star formation and cloud evolution
• A Giant Molecular Cloud Catalog in the Molecular Disk of the Elliptical Galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)
• $\text{slick}$: Modeling a Universe of Molecular Line Luminosities in Hydrodynamical Simulations
• ALMA Observations of the Molecular Clouds in NGC 625
• Optical IFU spectroscopy of a bipolar microquasar jet in NGC 300
• ALMA ${}^{13}\mathrm{CO}$(J=1-0) Observations of NGC 604 in M33: Physical Properties of Molecular Clouds
• The Hierarchical Dynamical State of Molecular Gas from 3 to 300 pc in NGC 253
• PHANGS-MUSE: the HII region luminosity function of local star-forming galaxies
• Molecular Clouds at the Edge of the Galaxy II. Physical properties and scaling relations
• Why most molecular clouds are gravitationally dominated
• Systematic Investigation of Dust and Gaseous CO in 12 Nearby Molecular Clouds