Cloud-cloud collisions in the Antennae galaxies: Does high-speed collision suppress star formation?
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 () 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 and mass () 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 and . SFR is calculated using H and mid-infrared data. From 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 (~100 km/s) of massive (~ ) GMCs are seen show the highest surface density of SFR. Particularly, in the region with ~100 km/s, we find that SFR on a sub-kpc scale increases with increasing in the range of ~- . The SFE of a colliding cloud is estimated to be 0.1%-3.0% without clear dependence, and the SFE is the lowest at the ~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