Spatially-resolved Dense Molecular Gas Excitation in the Nearby LIRG VV 114

Abstract

We present high-resolution observations (0".2-1".5) of multiple dense gas tracers, HCN and HCO${}^{+}$ ($J$ = 1-0, 3-2, and 4-3), HNC ($J$ = 1-0), and CS ($J$ = 7-6) lines, toward the nearby luminous infrared galaxy VV 114 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. All lines are robustly detected at the central gaseous filamentary structure including the eastern nucleus and the Overlap region, the collision interface of the progenitors. We found that there is no correlation between star formation efficiency and dense gas fraction, indicating that the amount of dense gas does not simply control star formation in VV 114. We predict the presence of more turbulent and diffuse molecular gas clouds around the Overlap region compared to those at the nuclear region assuming a turbulence-regulated star formation model. The intracloud turbulence at the Overlap region might be excited by galaxy-merger-induced shocks, which also explains the enhancement of gas-phase CH${}_3$OH abundance previously found there. We also present spatially resolved spectral line energy distributions of HCN and HCO${}^{+}$ for the first time, and derive excitation parameters by assuming optically-thin and local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) conditions. The LTE model revealed that warmer, HCO${}^{+}$-poorer molecular gas medium is dominated around the eastern nucleus, harboring an AGN. The HCN abundance is remarkably flat ($\sim$3.5 $\times$ 10${}^{-9}$) independently of the various environments within the filament of VV 114 (i.e., AGN, star formation, and shock).

arXiv comment23 pages, 21 figures (downconverted), 5 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (87)

• Rotating Nuclear Rings and Extreme Starbursts in Ultraluminous Galaxies
• A General Theory of Turbulence-Regulated Star Formation, From Spirals to ULIRGs
• The Star Formation Rate and Dense Molecular Gas in Galaxies
• The CO-to-H2 Conversion Factor and Dust-to-Gas Ratio on Kiloparsec Scales in Nearby Galaxies
• ISM masses and the star formation law at Z = 1 to 6 // ALMA observations of dust continuum in 145 galaxies in the COSMOS survey field
• The Critical Density and the Effective Excitation Density of Commonly Observed Molecular Dense Gas Tracers
• HCN Survey of Normal Spiral, IR-luminous and Ultraluminous Galaxies
• Molecular line emission in NGC1068 imaged with ALMA. I An AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas
• How to Calculate Molecular Column Density
• GOALS: The Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey
• NICMOS Imaging of Infrared-Luminous Galaxies
• Star Formation Rates in Molecular Clouds and the Nature of the Extragalactic Scaling Relations
• Observations of Arp 220 using Herschel-SPIRE: An Unprecedented View of the Molecular Gas in an Extreme Star Formation Environment
• The driving mechanism of starbursts in galaxy mergers
• A multi-transition HCN and HCO+ study of 12 nearby active galaxies: AGN versus SB environments
• Spatially Resolved Chemistry in Nearby Galaxies I. The Center of IC 342
• Radio-to-FIR Spectral Energy Distribution and Photometric Redshifts for Dusty Starburst Galaxies
• Star formation laws in Luminous Infrared Galaxies. New observational constraints on models
• The Relationship Between Molecular Gas Tracers and Kennicutt-Schmidt Laws
• Luminous Infrared Galaxies with the Submillimeter Array: I. Survey Overview and the Central Gas to Dust Ratio
• The Herschel Comprehensive (U)LIRG Emission Survey (HerCULES): CO Ladders, fine structure lines, and neutral gas cooling
• Star formation relations and CO SLEDs across the J-ladder and redshift
• Variations in the Star Formation Efficiency of the Dense Molecular Gas across the Disks of Star-Forming Galaxies
• Evidence of enhanced star formation efficiency in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies
• Star Formation in Extreme Environments: The Effects of Cosmic Rays and Mechanical Heating
• Molecular line emission in NGC1068 imaged with ALMA: II. The chemistry of the dense molecular gas
• The Rest-Frame Submillimeter Spectrum of High-Redshift, Dusty, Star-Forming Galaxies
• L'CO/LFIR Relations with CO Rotational Ladders of Galaxies Across the Herschel SPIRE Archive
• Molecules as tracers of galaxy evolution: an EMIR survey. I. Presentation of the data and first results
• Is HCN a True Tracer of Dense Molecular Gas in LIRGs and ULIRGs?
• Vibrationally Excited HCN in the Luminous Infrared Galaxy NGC 4418
• Toward First-Principle Simulations of Galaxy Formation: II. Shock-Induced Starburst at a Collision Interface During the First Encounter of Interacting Galaxies
• CN and HNC Line Emission in IR Luminous Galaxies
• High resolution observations of HCN and HCO+ J=3-2 in the disk and outflow of Mrk231 -Detection of vibrationally excited HCN in the warped nucleus
• Molecular Star Formation Rate Indicators in Galaxies
• Testing the universality of the star formation efficiency in dense molecular gas
• HCN versus HCO+ as dense molecular gas mass tracer in Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• Dense Gas Tracers and Star Formation Laws in Active Galaxies: APEX Survey of HCN J=4-3, HCO+ J=4-3, and CS J=7-6
• Millimeter Interferometric HCN(1-0) and HCO+(1-0) Observations of Luminous Infrared Galaxies
• A Multi-Transistion CO Study of the "Antennae" Galaxies NGC4038/9
• Overluminous HNC Line Emission in Arp220, NGC4418 and Mrk231 - Global IR Pumping or XDRs?
• Lambda = 3 mm line survey of nearby active galaxies
• Submillimeter Interferometry of the Luminous Infrared Galaxy NGC 4418: A Hidden Hot Nucleus with an Inflow and an Outflow
• Starburst galaxies and structure in the submillimetre background towards the Hubble Deep Field
• Excitation Mechanisms for HCN (1-0) and HCO+ (1-0) in Galaxies from the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey
• Submillimeter ALMA Observations of the Dense Gas in the Low-Luminosity Type-1 Active Nucleus of NGC 1097
• Multi-molecule ALMA observations towards the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 1097
• Molecular gas heating mechanisms, and star formation feedback in merger/s tarbursts: NGC 6240 and Arp 193 as case studies
• High Resolution Imaging of Warm and Dense Molecular Gas in the Nuclear Region of the Luminous Infrared Galaxy NGC6240
• Radial Gas Flows in Colliding Galaxies: Connecting Simulations and Observations
• Submillimeter-HCN Diagram for an Energy Diagnostics in the Centers of Galaxies
• New insights on the dense molecular gas in NGC253 as traced by HCN and HCO+
• HNC, HCN and CN in Seyfert galaxies
• ALMA 0.1-0.2 arcsec resolution imaging of the NGC 1068 nucleus - compact dense molecular gas emission at the putative AGN location
• ALMA HCN and HCO+ J=3-2 observations of optical Seyfert and luminous infrared galaxies -- Confirmation of elevated HCN-to-HCO+ flux ratios in AGNs --
• Far-Ultraviolet & X-ray Observations of VV 114: Feedback in a Local Analog to Lyman Break Galaxies
• A high-resolution mm and cm study of the obscured LIRG NGC 4418 - A compact obscured nucleus fed by in-falling gas?
• Spectral Line Survey toward Spiral Arm of M51 in the 3 mm and 2 mm Bands
• Prevalence of compact nuclear starbursts in nearby Seyfert galaxies
• Linking Dense Gas from the Milky Way to External Galaxies
• ALMA Observations of the Submillimeter Dense Molecular Gas Tracers in the Luminous Type-1 Active Nucleus of NGC 7469
• ALMA Multi-line Observations of the IR-bright Merger VV 114
• Diagnostics of the molecular component of PDRs with mechanical heating. II: line intensities and ratios
• Gas and Dust in the Taffy Galaxies: Ugc12914/15
• Interferometric CO(3-2) Observations toward the Central Region of NGC 1068
• AKARI IRC 2.5-5 um Spectroscopy of Infrared Galaxies over a Wide Luminosity Range
• ALMA Detection of the Vibrationally Excited HCN J=4-3 Emission Line in the AGN-Hosting Luminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 20551-4250
• ALMA Observations of Nearby Luminous Infrared Galaxies with Various AGN Energetic Contributions Using Dense Gas Tracers
• Disentangling the Circumnuclear Environs of Centaurus A: III. An Inner Molecular Ring, Nuclear Shocks and the CO to warm H2 interface
• High Density Molecular Gas in the IR-bright Galaxy System VV114
• ALMA Multiple-Transition Observations of High Density Molecular Tracers in Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• Luminous Infrared Galaxies With the Submillimeter Array. III. The Dense Kiloparsec Molecular Concentrations of Arp 299
• ALMA Investigation of Vibrationally Excited HCN/HCO+/HNC Emission Lines in the AGN-Hosting Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 20551-4250
• Spatially resolved CO SLED of the Luminous Merger Remnant NGC 1614 with ALMA
• High-density Molecular Gas Properties of the Starburst Galaxy NGC 1614 Revealed with ALMA
• Luminous Infrared Galaxies With the Submillimeter Array. IV. 12CO J=6-5 Observations of VV 114
• Active Galactic Nucleus and Extended Starbursts in a Mid-stage Merger VV114
• Probing Circumnuclear Environments with the HCN(J = 3-2) and HCO+(J = 3-2) lines: Case of NGC 1097
• Dense molecular gas in the starburst nucleus of NGC 1808
• Ground-based Pa$\alpha$ Narrow-band Imaging of Local Luminous Infrared Galaxies I: Star Formation Rates and Surface Densities
• Merger-induced Shocks in the Nearby LIRG VV 114 through Methanol Observations with ALMA
• ALMA Multiple-Transition Molecular Line Observations of the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 20551-4250: Different HCN, HCO+, HNC Excitation and Implications for Infrared Radiative Pumping
• Investigating the Relation between CO (3-2) and Far Infrared Luminosities for Nearby Merging Galaxies Using ASTE
• The dense gas in the largest molecular complexes of the Antennae: HCN and HCO+ observations of NGC 4038/39 using ALMA
• Modelling the Molecular Gas in NGC 6240
• ALMA observations of the dense and shocked gas in the nuclear region of NGC 4038 (Antennae galaxies)
• Kinematics of the ionized and molecular gas in nearby luminous infrared interacting galaxies

Cited by in corpus (13)

• ALMA 0.02"-resolution observations reveal HCN-abundance-enhanced counter-rotating and outflowing dense molecular gas at the NGC 1068 nucleus
• ALMA Spatially-resolved Dense Molecular Gas Survey of Nearby Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• GOALS-JWST: Hidden Star Formation and Extended PAH Emission in the Luminous Infrared Galaxy VV 114
• GOALS-JWST: Pulling Back the Curtain on the AGN and Star Formation in VV 114
• Massive Star Cluster Formation and Destruction in Luminous Infrared Galaxies in GOALS II: An ACS/WFC3 Survey of Nearby LIRGs
• Planck's Dusty GEMS. VIII. Dense-gas reservoirs in the most active dusty starbursts at z~3
• The Rest-Frame Submillimeter Spectrum of High Redshift, Dusty, Star-Forming Galaxies from the SPT-SZ Survey
• Sub-kiloparsec empirical relations and excitation conditions of HCN and HCO+ J=3-2 in nearby star-forming galaxies
• HCN 3-2 survey towards a sample of local galaxies
• Observed CN and HCN intensity ratios exhibit subtle variations in extreme galaxy environments
• ALMA Sub-arcsec-resolution 183 GHz H2O and Dense Molecular Line Observations of Nearby Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• Shockingly Effective: Cluster Winds as Engines of Feedback in Starburst Galaxy VV 114
• CN 2-1 and CS 5-4 observations toward Arp 299 with the SMA