English

Cloud-cloud collisions in the Antennae galaxies: Does high-speed collision suppress star formation?

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-03-27 v2

Abstract

Cloud-cloud collision (CCC) has been proposed as a mechanism for triggering massive star formation. Observations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies have revealed the presence of CCCs with collision velocity (vcolv_{\rm col}) of 1-40 km/s, and the connection between star formation activity and the properties of colliding clouds has been investigated. In this study, we expand the study to much faster (~100 km/s) CCCs in a nearby colliding galaxies system, the Antennae galaxies. We examine how star formation rate (SFR) on a sub-kpc scale depends on the vcolv_{\rm col} and mass (MmolM_{\rm mol}) of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) across the Antennae galaxies, which show diverse star formation activity. Furthermore, to examine the star formation process at a more fundamental level, we also investigate how the star formation efficiency (SFE) of a colliding GMC depends on its vcolv_{\rm col} and MmolM_{\rm mol}. SFR is calculated using Hα\alpha and mid-infrared data. From 2000\sim2000 GMCs identified in the CO(1-0) data cube using the ALMA archival data, collision velocities are estimated based on the velocity dispersion among GMCs in a sub-kpc scale region, assuming random motion in three-dimensional space. GMCs are considered to be colliding at a velocity of ~10-150 km/s. We find that regions where high-speed collisions (vcolv_{\rm col}~100 km/s) of massive (MmolM_{\rm mol}~107810^{7-8} MM_\odot) GMCs are seen show the highest surface density of SFR. Particularly, in the region with vcolv_{\rm col}~100 km/s, we find that SFR on a sub-kpc scale increases with increasing MmolM_{\rm mol} in the range of ~10610^{6}-10810^{8} MM_\odot. The SFE of a colliding cloud is estimated to be 0.1%-3.0% without clear MmolM_{\rm mol} dependence, and the SFE is the lowest at the vcolv_{\rm col}~100-150 km/s. These results suggest that the most active star formation in the Antennae galaxies seems to occur due to large GMC mass.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.17951,
  title  = {Cloud-cloud collisions in the Antennae galaxies: Does high-speed collision suppress star formation?},
  author = {Shin Inoue and Kouji Ohta and Fumiya Maeda},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.17951},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

16 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ