Dense gas in local galaxies revealed by multiple tracers

TL;DR

This study uses multi-line spectroscopic observations of dense gas tracers in 70 nearby galaxies to establish tight correlations with infrared luminosity, revealing insights into dense gas properties and star formation.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive comparison of multiple dense gas tracers across a wide luminosity range, clarifying their relations with star formation and AGN diagnostics.

Findings

Tight linear correlations between dense gas tracers and infrared luminosity.

No significant difference among tracers in tracing dense molecular gas.

HCN/HCO+ line ratio is not a reliable AGN indicator.

Abstract

We present 3 mm and 2 mm band simultaneously spectroscopic observations of HCN 1-0, HCO$^{+}$ 1-0, HNC 1-0, and CS 3-2 with the IRAM 30 meter telescope, toward a sample of 70 sources as nearby galaxies with infrared luminosities ranging from several 10$^{5}L_{\odot}$ to more than 10$^{12}L_{\odot}$. After combining HCN 1-0, HCO$^{+}$ 1-0 and HNC 1-0 data from literature with our detections, relations between luminosities of dense gas tracers (HCN 1-0, HCO$^{+}$ 1-0 and HNC 1-0) and infrared luminosities are derived, with tight linear correlations for all tracers. Luminosities of CS 3-2 with only our observations also show tight linear correlation with infrared luminosities. No systematic difference is found for tracing dense molecular gas among these tracers. Star formation efficiencies for dense gas with different tracers also do not show any trend along different infrared luminosities. Our study also shows that HCN/HCO$^{+}$ line ratio might not be a good indicator to diagnose obscured AGN in galaxies.