CO Excitation and its Connection to Star Formation at 200 pc in NGC 1365

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution CO line observations of NGC 1365 to explore how molecular gas properties relate to star formation, revealing that denser or warmer gas correlates with recent star formation activity.

Contribution

It provides detailed insights into CO excitation and its connection to star formation at 200 pc scales, highlighting the importance of spectral fitting for accurate gas property measurements.

Findings

CO(2--1)/CO(1--0) ratio varies with star formation activity.

Similar velocity dispersions suggest common gas components.

Spectral fitting reveals multiple kinematic components.

Abstract

We report high resolution 2" ~ 200 pc mappings of the central region of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 in the CO(1--0) and CO(2--1) emission lines. The 2--1/1--0 ratio of integrated intensities shows a large scatter (0.15) with a median value of 0.67. We also calculate the ratio of velocity dispersions and peak temperatures and find that in most cases the velocity dispersion ratio is close to unity and thus the peak temperature ratio is comparable to the integrated intensity ratio. This result indicates that both CO(1--0) and CO(2--1) lines trace similar components of molecular gas, with their integrated intensity (or peak temperature) ratios reflecting the gas density and/or temperature. Similar to recent kpc scale studies, these ratios show a positive correlation with a star formation rate indicator (here we use an extinction-corrected H-alpha map), suggesting that molecular gas associated with recent star formation is denser and/or warmer. We also find that some CO spectra show two peaks owing to complicated kinematics, and such two components likely trace molecular gas at different conditions. This result demonstrates the importance of spectral fitting to measure integrated intensities and their ratios more accurately.