Related papers: Molecular Gas in Spiral Galaxies
Having to have low thermal energy, the molecular gas in galaxies is expected to settle in a thin disc near the midplane. However, contradicting this understanding, recent studies have revealed considerably thick molecular discs in nearby…
Observations of the molecular gas in galaxies are vital to understanding the evolution and star-forming histories of galaxies. However, galaxies with molecular gas maps of their whole discs having sufficient resolution to distinguish…
I review observational studies of the large-scale star formation process in nearby galaxies. A wealth of new multi-wavelength data provide an unprecedented view on the interplay of the interstellar medium and (young) stellar populations on…
Knowledge of the molecular component of the ISM is fundamental to understand star formation. The H2 component appears to dominate the gas mass in the inner parts of galaxies, while the HI component dominates in the outer parts. Observation…
We extend recent numerical results (Dobbs et. al. 2006) on molecular cloud formation in spiral galaxies by including a multi-phase medium. The addition of a hot phase of gas enhances the structure in the cold gas, and significantly…
I review recent observations of molecular gas in the halo of the Milky Way and in the Magellanic Clouds. Far-ultraviolet absorption line studies of molecular hydrogen (H_2) with ORFEUS and FUSE have unveiled the presence of a diffuse…
I present a unique data set for the study of molecular gas in galaxies: a complete, high-resolution survey of the CO in M31 and additional local studies. The fully sampled survey has an angular resolution of 23" FWHM and the interferometric…
Complete catalogs of molecular clouds in the Milky Way allow analysis of the molecular medium and the star formation properties of the Milky Way that closely follows the method used for nearby galaxies. We explore whether the big dip in the…
Galaxy interactions can disturb gas in galactic discs, compress it, excite it, and enhance star formation. An intriguing system likely consisting of two interacting galaxies overlapping on the line-of-sight was previously studied through…
We give two examples of spiral galaxies that show non-circular gas motions in the inner kiloparsecs, from SAURON integral field spectroscopy. We use harmonic decomposition of the velocity field of the ionized gas to study the underlying…
I summarize some results from the recent CO survey of late-type, low surface brightness (LSB) spiral galaxies by Matthews et al. (2005). We have now detected CO emission from six late-type, LSB spirals, demonstrating that despite their…
The cloud-scale density, velocity dispersion, and gravitational boundedness of the interstellar medium (ISM) vary within and among galaxies. In turbulent models, these properties play key roles in the ability of gas to form stars. New high…
At the highest stellar masses (log(\mstar) $\gtrsim$ 11.5 \msun), only a small fraction of galaxies are disk-like and actively star-forming objects. These so-called `super spirals' are ideal objects to better understand how galaxy evolution…
We review the evolution of the cosmic average molecular gas density to large look-back times, using observations of rotational transitions of CO. Molecular gas is the fuel for star formation in galaxies. Deep searches for CO emission from…
Recent observations show that spiral galaxies are surrounded by extended gaseous halos as predicted by the hierarchical structure formation scenario. The origin and nature of extraplanar gas is often unclear since the halo is continuously…
Studies of the molecular interstellar medium that fuels star formation and supermassive black hole growth in galaxies at cosmological distances have undergone tremendous progress over the past few years. Based on the detection of molecular…
The NRO/OVRO imaging survey of molecular gas in 20 spiral galaxies is used to test the theoretical predictions on bar-driven gas transport, bar dissolution, and bulge evolution. In most galaxies in the survey we find gas condensations of…
The data from a CO(1 - 0) mapping survey of 40 nearby spiral galaxies performed with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope are presented. The criteria of the sample selection were (1) RC3 morphological type in the range Sa to Scd, (2) distance less…
We present an analysis of the molecular gas distributions in the 29 barred and 15 unbarred spirals in BIMA SONG. For CO-bright galaxies, we confirm the conclusion by Sakamoto et al. (1999b) that barred spirals have higher molecular gas…
Shells are fine stellar structures identified by their arc-like shapes present around a galaxy and currently thought to be vestiges of galaxy interactions and/or mergers. The study of their number, geometry, stellar populations and gas…