Correlations of ALMA CO(2-1) with JWST mid-infrared fluxes down to scale of $\lesssim$100 parsec in nearby star-forming galaxies from PHANGS

TL;DR

This study explores the detailed relationships between CO emission, PAH, and dust emissions at small scales in nearby star-forming galaxies, revealing scale-dependent coupling mechanisms and variations linked to galaxy star formation activity.

Contribution

Introduces a new regression method to analyze CO, PAH, and dust emission correlations at sub-100 parsec scales, highlighting galaxy-to-galaxy variations and the influence of ionization conditions.

Findings

Log-linear relations describe most emission correlations.

Galaxy-to-galaxy variations are significant and linked to star formation strength.

Coupling mechanisms vary with spatial scale and ionization conditions.

Abstract

We investigate the correlations of CO (2-1) emission (${I_{\rm CO}}$) with PAH (${I_{\rm F770W, PAH}}$ and ${I_{\rm F1130W}}$) and dust (${I_{\rm F2100W}}$) emission down to scales of $\lesssim$ 100 pc, by applying \raddest, a novel regression technique recently developed by T. Jing & C. Li (2025) that effectively handles uncertainties and outliers in datasets, to 19 nearby star-forming galaxies in the PHANGS sample. We find that for the majority of the data points in all galaxies, the scaling of ${I_{\rm CO}}$ with ${I_{\rm F770W, PAH}}$, ${I_{\rm F1130W}}$, and ${I_{\rm F2100W}}$ can be well described by log-linear relations, though with substantial dependence on ionization conditions (i.e., HII-like, composite-like, and AGN-like). Under given ionization conditions, significant galaxy-to-galaxy variations are identified, and are primarily attributed to variations of intercept $b$, which exhibits clear bimodality. This bimodality is related to the overall host galaxy star formation strength. The differences in slope $k$ and intrinsic scatter $\sigma$ across different MIR bands (${I_{\rm F770W, PAH}}$, ${I_{\rm F1130W}}$, and ${I_{\rm F2100W}}$) are minor compared to their galaxy-to-galaxy variations. All parameters ($k$, $b$, and $\sigma$) depend on the spatial scale of measurement, suggesting that the coupling among CO, PAH, and dust is regulated by different mechanisms at varying scales. We identify non-log-linear behaviors in the brightest regions, where deviations are primarily characterized by flattening of slope. No significant (3$\sigma$) correlations are found between global properties and the best-fit parameters. We discuss the comparison to previous studies and plausible physics behind the statistical results obtained in this work.