CMZoom: survey overview and first data release
| Autor: | Volker Tolls, Thushara Pillai, Nimesh A. Patel, Luis C. Ho, Qizhou Zhang, Ashley T. Barnes, H Perry Hatchfield, Eric Keto, Yanett Contreras, Xing Lu, Daniel Walker, Cara Battersby, Steven N. Longmore, Elisabeth A. C. Mills, Daniel Callanan, Jonathan D. Henshaw, J. M. Diederik Kruijssen, Natalie Butterfield, Adam Ginsburg, Jens Kauffmann, John Bally, Jürgen Ott |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
010308 nuclear & particles physics Star formation Molecular cloud Milky Way Galactic Center FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Astrophysics Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies 01 natural sciences Submillimeter Array Stars 13. Climate action Space and Planetary Science Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) 0103 physical sciences Protostar Disc 010303 astronomy & astrophysics QC QB |
| Zdroj: | The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 249(2), 35 |
| ISSN: | 0067-0049 1538-3881 0004-637X 1538-3873 0004-6361 |
| Popis: | We present an overview of the CMZoom survey and its first data release. CMZoom is the first blind, high-resolution survey of the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ; the inner 500 pc of the Milky Way) at wavelengths sensitive to the pre-cursors of high-mass stars. CMZoom is a 500-hour Large Program on the Submillimeter Array (SMA) that mapped at 1.3 mm all of the gas and dust in the CMZ above a molecular hydrogen column density of 10^23 cm^-2 at a resolution of ~3" (0.1 pc). In this paper, we focus on the 1.3 mm dust continuum and its data release, but also describe CMZoom spectral line data which will be released in a forthcoming publication. While CMZoom detected many regions with rich and complex substructure, its key result is an overall deficit in compact substructures on 0.1 - 2 pc scales (the compact dense gas fraction: CDGF). In comparison with clouds in the Galactic disk, the CDGF in the CMZ is substantially lower, despite having much higher average column densities. CMZ clouds with high CDGFs are well-known sites of active star formation. The inability of most gas in the CMZ to form compact substructures is likely responsible for the dearth of star formation in the CMZ, surprising considering its high density. The factors responsible for the low CDGF are not yet understood but are plausibly due to the extreme environment of the CMZ, having far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of the star formation process across the cosmos. Comment: Accepted for Publication in ApJS |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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