Detailed molecular observations toward the Double Helix Nebula

TL;DR

This study provides high-resolution molecular observations of the Double Helix Nebula, revealing detailed distributions and physical conditions of its molecular counterparts, and supports their association with the nebula based on kinematic and spatial data.

Contribution

The paper presents new CO observations with higher resolution, offering detailed insights into the molecular counterparts of the DHN and their physical properties, advancing understanding of its molecular environment.

Findings

The 0 km/s molecular feature coincides with the DHN's infrared emission.

The -35 km/s feature shows less clear association but supports connection through spatial and velocity data.

Both features are highly excited with temperatures around 30 K.

Abstract

The Double Helix Nebula (DHN), located 100 pc above Sgr A* in the Galactic center (GC), is a unique structure whose morphology suggests it is a magnetic feature (Morris, Uchida & Do 2006). Recent molecular observations toward the DHN by Enokiya et al. (2014) revealed two candidate molecular counterparts of the DHN at radial velocities of -35 km/s and 0 km/s and discussed the model in which the DHN has its origin at the circumnuclear disk in the GC. In this paper, new CO observations toward the DHN using the CSO and Mopra telescopes are presented. The higher-resolution observations of ~1 pc scale reveal the detailed distributions and kinematics of the two CO counterparts (the 0 km/s and -35 km/s features) and provide new information on their physical conditions. As a result, we find that the 0 km/s feature with a mass of 3.3x10^4 Msun coincides with the infrared emission of the DHN, indicating clear association with the DHN. The association of the -35 km/s feature, with a mass of 0.8x10^4 Msun, is less clear compared with the 0 km/s feature, but the complementary distribution between the molecular gas and the DHN and velocity variation along the DHN support its association with the DHN. The two molecular features are highly excited, as shown by the relatively high CO J=2-1/J=1-0 intensity ratios of ~1.0, and have kinetic temperatures of ~30 K, consistent with the typical molecular clouds in the GC.