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Related papers: Cloud Collision Signatures in the Central Molecula…

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The central molecular zone (CMZ) of our Galaxy exhibits widespread emission from SiO and various complex organic molecules (COMs), yet the exact origin of such emission is uncertain. Here we report the discovery of a unique class of long…

The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) is the largest reservoir of dense molecular gas in the Galaxy and is heavily obscured in the optical and near-IR. We present an overview of the far-IR dust continuum, where the molecular clouds are revealed,…

The condensation of diffuse gas into molecular clouds occurs at a rate driven largely by turbulent dissipation. This process still has to be caught in action and characterized. A mosaic of 13 fields was observed in the CO(1-0) line with the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-14 E. Falgarone , J. Pety , P. Hily-Blant

Being one of the most abundant atomic/molecular species observed in dense molecular gas, atomic carbon ($\mathrm{C}^0$) is a potential good tracer of molecular gas mass in many chemical/physical environments, though the $\mathrm{C^0}$…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-07-21 Kunihiko Tanaka , Makoto Nagai , Kazuhisa Kamegai

High-velocity clouds (HVCs) may fuel future star formation in the Milky Way, but they must first survive their passage through the hot halo. While recent work has improved our understanding of the survival criterion for cloud-wind…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-08-28 Lori E. Porter , Matthew Abruzzo , Greg L. Bryan , Mary Putman , Yong Zheng , Drummond Fielding

In this work, we constrain the star-forming properties of all possible sites of incipient high-mass star formation in the Milky Way's Galactic Center. We identify dense structures using the CMZoom 1.3mm dust continuum catalog of objects…

Different from Milky-Way-like galaxies, discs of gas-rich galaxies are clumpy. It is believed that the clumps form because of gravitational instability. However, a necessary condition for gravitational instability to develop is that the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-08-30 Guang-Xing Li

In dense stellar clusters like galactic nuclei and globular clusters stellar densities are so high that stars might physically collide with each other. In galactic nuclei the energy and power output can be close, and even exceed, to those…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-04-19 Pau Amaro Seoane

Collisions between giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are one of the pathways for massive star formation, due to the high densities created. However the enhancement of the star formation rate (SFR) is not well constrained. In this study we…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-01-13 Glen H. Hunter , Paul C. Clark , Simon C. O. Glover , Ralf S. Klessen

Molecular hydrogen clouds are a key component of the interstellar medium because they are the birthplaces for stars. They are embedded in atomic gas that pervades the interstellar space. However, the details of how molecular clouds assemble…

The outer Galaxy presents an optimal setting for investigating molecular clouds and star formation in environments with low metallicity. A total of 72 Galactic edge clouds were surveyed using the CO\,(2--1) line with the IRAM\,30\,m…

The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), located in the centre of the Milky Way, is a roughly cylindrical structure of molecular gas extending up to parsecs around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. The average H2 ionisation rate in the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-08-05 Sruthiranjani Ravikularaman , Sarah Recchia , Vo Hong Minh Phan , Stefano Gabici

One of the key problems in star formation research is to determine the role of magnetic fields. Starting from the atomic inter-cloud medium (ICM) which has density nH ~ 1 per cubic cm, gas must accumulate from a volume several hundred pc…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-13 Hua-bai Li , C. Darren Dowell , Alyssa Goodman , Roger Hildebrand , Giles Novak

The Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) differs dramatically from our local solar neighbourhood, both in the extreme interstellar medium conditions it exhibits (e.g. high gas, stellar, and feedback density) and in the strong dynamics…

We performed sub-parsec (~0.06pc) scale simulations of two idealised molecular clouds with different masses undergoing a collision. Gas clumps with density greater than 1e-20 g/cm3 (0.3e4 cm-3) were identified as pre-stellar cores and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-22 Ken Takahira , Elizabeth J. Tasker , Asao Habe

The kinematics of molecular gas are crucial for setting the stage for star formation. One key question related to the kinematic properties of gas is how they depend on the spatial scale. We aim to describe the CO spectra, velocity…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-11-16 Andri Spilker , Jouni Kainulainen , Jan Orkisz

Theoretical and observational investigations have indicated that the abundance of carbon monoxide (CO) is very sensitive to intrinsic properties of the gaseous medium, such as density, metallicity, and the background UV field. In order to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-20 Rahul Shetty , Simon C. Glover , Cornelis P. Dullemond , Ralf S. Klessen

Using an absorption line from the metastable (J, K) = (3, 3) level of H3+ together with other lines of H3+ and CO observed along several sightlines, we have discovered a vast amount of high temperature (T ~ 250 K) and low density (n ~ 100…

Astrophysics · Physics 2016-08-30 Takeshi Oka , T. R. Geballe , Miwa Goto , Tomonori Usuda , B. J. McCall

We report 350 and 230 GHz observations of molecular gas and dust in the starburst nucleus of NGC 253 at 20-40 pc (1"-2") resolution. The data contain CO(3-2), HCN(4-3), CO(2-1), 13CO(2-1), C18O(2-1), and continuum at 0.87 mm and 1.3 mm…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-27 Kazushi Sakamoto , Rui-Qing Mao , Satoki Matsushita , Alison B. Peck , Tsuyoshi Sawada , Martina C. Wiedner

We infer the absolute time dependence of kinematic gas temperature along a proposed orbit of molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Galactic Center (GC). Ammonia gas temperature maps are one of the results of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-02-22 Nico Krieger , Jürgen Ott , Fabian Walter , J. M. Diederik Kruijssen , Henrik Beuther , the SWAG team