CO Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING). IX. ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1)/${}^{12}$CO($J$=1-0) line ratio on kiloparsec scales

Abstract

While molecular gas mass is usually derived from ${}^{12}$CO($J$=1-0) - the most fundamental line to explore molecular gas - it is often derived from ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1) assuming a constant ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1)/${}^{12}$CO($J$=1-0) line ratio ($R_{2/1}$). We present variations of $R_{2/1}$ and effects of the assumption that $R_{2/1}$ is a constant in 24 nearby galaxies using ${}^{12}$CO data obtained with the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope and IRAM 30-m telescope. The median of $R_{2/1}$ for all galaxies is 0.61, and the weighted mean of $R_{2/1}$ by ${}^{12}$CO($J$=1-0) integrated-intensity is 0.66 with a standard deviation of 0.19. The radial variation of $R_{2/1}$ shows that it is high (~0.8) in the inner ~1 kpc while its median in disks is nearly constant at 0.60 when all galaxies are compiled. In the case that the constant $R_{2/1}$ of 0.7 is adopted, we found that the total molecular gas mass derived from ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1) is underestimated/overestimated by ~20%, and at most by 35%. The scatter of a molecular gas surface density within each galaxy becomes larger by ~30%, and at most by 120%. Indices of the spatially resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt relation by ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1) are underestimated by 10-20%, at most 39% in 17 out of 24 galaxies. $R_{2/1}$ has good positive correlations with star-formation rate and infrared color, and a negative correlation with molecular gas depletion time. There is a clear tendency of increasing $R_{2/1}$ with increasing kinetic temperature ($T_{\mathrm{kin}}$). Further, we found that not only $T_{\mathrm{kin}}$ but also pressure of molecular gas is important to understand variations of $R_{2/1}$. Special considerations should be made when discussing molecular gas mass and molecular gas properties inferred from ${}^{12}$CO($J$=2-1) instead of ${}^{12}$CO($J$=1-0).

29 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in PASJ. The original resolution version is available here (https://astro3.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~radio/coming/publications/COMING_IX_org_res.pdf)