Publication Date:
2021-03-31
Description:
Both the CO(2-1) and CO(1-0) lines are used to trace the mass of molecular gas in galaxies. Translating the molecular gas mass estimates between studies using different lines requires a good understanding of the behaviour of the CO(2-1)-to-CO(1-0) ratio, R21. We compare new, high quality CO(1-0) data from the IRAM 30-m EMPIRE survey to the latest available CO(2-1) maps from HERACLES, PHANGS-ALMA, and a new IRAM 30-m M51 Large Program. This allows us to measure R21 across the full star-forming disc of nine nearby, massive, star-forming spiral galaxies at 27″(∼1 − 2 kpc) resolution. We find an average R21 = 0.64 ± 0.09 when we take the luminosity-weighted mean of all individual galaxies. This result is consistent with the mean ratio for disc galaxies that we derive from single-pointing measurements in the literature, $R_{
m 21, lit}~=~0.59^{+0.18}_{-0.09}$. The ratio shows weak radial variations compared to the point-to-point scatter in the data. In six out of nine targets the central enhancement in R21 with respect to the galaxy-wide mean is of order $sim 10{-}20\%$. We estimate an azimuthal scatter of ∼20% in R21 at fixed galactocentric radius but this measurement is limited by our comparatively coarse resolution of 1.5 kpc. We find mild correlations between R21 and CO brightness temperature, IR intensity, 70-to-160 μm ratio, and IR-to-CO ratio. All correlations indicate that R21 increases with gas surface density, star formation rate surface density, and the interstellar radiation field.
Print ISSN:
0035-8711
Electronic ISSN:
1365-2966
Topics:
Physics
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