Recent galaxy observations show that star formation activity changes depending on galactic environments. In order to understand the diversity of galactic-scale star formation, it is crucial to understand the formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds in an extreme environment. We focus on observational evidence that bars in strongly barred galaxies lack massive stars even though quantities of molecular gas are sufficient to form stars. In this paper, we present a hydrodynamical simulation of a strongly barred galaxy, using a stellar potential which is taken from observational results of NGC1300, and we compare cloud properties between different galactic environments: bar, bar-end and spiral arms. We find that the mean of cloud's virial parameter is ~1 and that there is no environmental dependence, indicating that the gravitationally-bound state of a cloud is not behind the observational evidence of the lack of massive stars in strong bars. Instead, we focus on cloud-cloud collisions, which have been proposed as a triggering mechanism for massive star formation. We find that the collision speed in the bar is faster than those in the other regions. We examine the collision frequency using clouds' kinematics and conclude that the fast collisions in the bar could originate from random-like motion of clouds due to elliptical gas orbits shifted by the bar potential. These results suggest that the observed regions of lack of active star-formation in the strong bar originate from the fast cloud-cloud collisions, which are inefficient in forming massive stars, due to the galactic-scale violent gas motion.
Suppression of star formation at the centre of barred AGN galaxies
Waseda University（早稻田大学）；University of Tsukuba（筑波大学）；National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台）；Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）；Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）
We present new spectroscopic data for 21 barred spiral galaxies, which we use to explore the effect of bars on disk star formation, and to place constraints on the characteristic lifetimes of bar episodes. The analysis centres on regions of heavily suppressed star formation activity, which we term 'star formation deserts'. Long-slit optical spectroscopy is used to determine H beta absorption strengths in these desert regions, and comparisons with theoretical stellar population models are used to determine the time since the last significant star formation activity, and hence the ages of the ba…
Cloud collision have been proposed as a way to link the small-scale star formation process with the observed global relation between the surface star formation rate and gas surface density. We suggest that this model can be improved further by allowing the productivity of such collisions to depend on the relative velocity of the two clouds. Our adjustment implements a simple step function that results in the most successful collisions being at the observed velocities for triggered star formation. By applying this to a high resolution simulation of a barred galaxy, we successfully reproduce the…
Cloud-cloud collision (CCC) has been suggested as a mechanism to induce massive star formation. Recent simulations suggest that a CCC speed is different among galactic-scale environments, which is responsible for observed differences in star formation activity. In particular, a high-speed CCC is proposed as a cause of star formation suppression in the bar regions in barred spiral galaxies. Focusing on the strongly barred galaxy NGC1300, we investigate the CCC speed. We find the CCC speed in the bar and bar-end tend to be higher than that in the arm. The estimated CCC speed is $\sim20~\rm km~s^…
Bars in disc-dominated galaxies are able to drive gas inflow inside the corotation radius, thus enhancing the central star formation rate (SFR). Previous work, however, has found that disc-dominated galaxies with centrally suppressed SFR frequently host a bar. Here we investigate possible causes for the suppression of central SFR in such cases. We compare physical properties of a sample of disc-dominated barred galaxies with high central SFR (HC galaxies) with those of a sample of disc-dominated barred galaxies with low central SFR (LC galaxies). We find that the two samples have on average si…
Star formation activity depends on galactic-scale environments. To understand the variations in star formation activity, comparing the properties of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) among environments with different star formation efficiency (SFE) is necessary. We thus focus on a strongly barred galaxy to investigate the impact of the galactic environment on the GMCs properties, because the SFE is clearly lower in bar regions than in arm regions. In this paper, we present the $^{12}$CO($1-0$) observations toward the western bar, arm and bar-end regions of the strongly barred galaxy NGC1300 with A…
We explore the impact of star formation and thermal stellar feedback on the giant molecular cloud (GMC) population forming in a M83-type barred spiral galaxy. We compare three high-resolution simulations (1.5 pc cell size) with different star formation/feedback models: one with no star formation, one with star formation but no feedback, and one with star formation and thermal energy injection. We analyze the resulting population of clouds, finding that we can identify the same population of massive, virialized clouds and transient, low-surface density clouds found in our previous work (that di…
We investigate the properties of massive, dense clouds formed in a barred galaxy and their possible relation to star formation, performing a two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulation with the gravitational potential obtained from the 2Mass data from the barred spiral galaxy, M83. Since the environment for cloud formation and evolution in the bar region is expected to be different from that in the spiral arm region, barred galaxies are a good target to study the environmental effects on cloud formation and the subsequent star formation. Our simulation uses for an initial 80 Myr an isothermal fl…
We carried out $^{12}$CO(J = 1 -0) observations toward bar and arm regions of strongly barred galaxies, NGC 1300 and NGC 5383, with the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope (beamsize of 1-2 kpc in the galaxies). The aim of the observations is to qualitatively examine a new scenario for the suppression of star formation in bars based on recent high-resolution numerical simulations: higher speed collisions between molecular clouds in the bar region compared with the arm region suppress the massive star formation. CO emissions were detected from all the regions, indicating the presence of the molecular …
We investigate the short-term dynamical evolution of stellar grand-design spiral arms in barred spiral galaxies using a three-dimensional (3D) $N$-body/hydrodynamic simulation. Similar to previous numerical simulations of unbarred, multiple-arm spirals, we find that grand-design spiral arms in barred galaxies are not stationary, but rather dynamic. This means that the amplitudes, pitch angles, and rotational frequencies of the spiral arms are not constant, but change within a few hundred million years (i.e. the typical rotational period of a galaxy). We also find that the clear grand-design sp…
We conduct spectral line survey observations in the 3 mm band toward a spiral arm, a bar-end, and a nuclear region of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 3627 with the IRAM 30 m telescope and the Nobeyama 45 m telescope. Additional observations are performed toward the spiral arm and the bar-end in the 2 mm band. We detect 8, 11, and 9 molecular species in the spiral arm, the bar-end, and the nuclear region, respectively. Star-formation activities are different among the three regions, and in particular, the nucleus of NGC 3627 is known as a LINER/Seyfert 2 type nucleus. In spite of these phys…
We present the results of $^{12}$CO($J$=1-0) and $^{13}$CO($J$=1-0) simultaneous mappings toward the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 4303 as a part of the CO Multi-line Imaging of Nearby Galaxies (COMING) project. Barred spiral galaxies often show lower star-formation efficiency (SFE) in their bar region compared to the spiral arms. In this paper, we examine the relation between the SFEs and the volume densities of molecular gas $n(\rm{H}_2)$ in the eight different regions within the galactic disk with CO data combined with archival far-ultraviolet and 24 $μ$m data. We confirmed that SFE in th…
In many barred galaxies, star formation efficiency (SFE) in the bar is lower than those in the arm and bar-end, and its cause has still not been clear. Focusing on the strongly barred galaxy NGC 1300, we investigate the possibility that the presence of a large amount of diffuse molecular gas, which would not contribute to the SF, makes the SFE low in appearance. We examine the relation between the SFE and the diffuse molecular gas fraction ($f_{\rm dif}$), which is derived using the $^{12}$CO($1-0$) flux obtained from the interferometer of ALMA 12-m array, which has no sensitivity on diffuse (…
The suppression of star formation in the inner kiloparsec regions of barred disk galaxies due to the action of bars is known as bar quenching. We investigate here the significance of bar quenching in the global quenching of star formation in the barred galaxies and their transformation to passive galaxies in the local Universe. We do this by measuring the offset of quenched barred galaxies from star-forming main sequence galaxies in the star formation rate-stellar mass plane and comparing it with the length of the bar, which is considered as a proxy of bar quenching. We constructed the star fo…
We present a spectroscopic analysis of the central disc regions of barred spiral galaxies, concentrating on the region that is swept by the bar but not including the bar itself (the `Star Formation Desert' or SFD region). New spectroscopy is presented for 34 galaxies, and the full sample analysed comprises 48 SBa - SBcd galaxies. These data confirm the full suppression of star formation within the SFD regions of all but the latest type (SBcd) galaxies. However, diffuse [NII] and H alpha line emission is detected in all galaxies. The ubiquity and homogeneous properties of this emission from SBa…
The dynamical evolution of stellar clusters is driven to a large extent by their environment. Several studies so far have considered the effect of tidal fields and their variations, such as, e.g., from giant molecular clouds, galactic discs, or spiral arms. In this paper we will concentrate on a tidal field whose effects on star clusters have not yet been studied, namely that of bars. We present a set of direct N-body simulations of star clusters moving in an analytic potential representing a barred galaxy. We compare the evolution of the clusters moving both on different planar periodic orbit…
We study the impact of Ly$α$ radiation feedback on globular cluster (GC) formation. In this Letter, we analytically derive the relation between star formation efficiency (SFE) and metallicity in spherical clouds with the Ly$α$ radiation feedback. Our models show that the SFE becomes small as the metallicity decreases. In metal-poor gas clouds, Ly$α$ photons are trapped for a long time and exert strong radiation force to the gas, resulting in the suppression of star formation. We find that bound star-clusters (SFE $\gtrsim$ 0.5) form only for the metallicity higher than $\sim 10^{-2.5}~Z_{\odot…
NGC 1808 is a nearby barred starburst galaxy with an outflow from the nuclear region. To study the inflow and outflow processes related to star formation and dynamical evolution of the galaxy, we have carried out \(^{12}\)CO (\(J=1-0\)) mapping observations of the central \(r\sim4\) kpc of NGC 1808 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Four distinct components of molecular gas are revealed at high spatial resolution of 2\arcsec (\(\sim100\) pc): (1) a compact (\(r<200\) pc) circumnuclear disk (CND), (2) \(r\sim500\) pc ring, (3) gas-rich galactic bar, and (4) spiral ar…
We study the phase space structure and the orbital diffusion from the vicinity of the vertical Lyapunov periodic orbits around the unstable Lagrangian points L1,2 in a 3D barred galaxy model. By perturbing the initial conditions of these periodic orbits, we detected the following five types of orbital structures in the 4D spaces of section: (i) Ring-like structures, sticky for large time intervals to the unstable invariant manifolds of the simple and double unstable vertical Lyapunov periodic orbits. (ii) 2D tori belonging to quasi-periodic orbits around stable periodic orbits existing in the …
CO(2-1) emission is often used as a tracer of the giant molecular clouds (GMCs) as an alternative to CO(1-0) emission in recent years. Therefore, understanding the environmental dependence of the line ratio of CO(2-1)/CO(1-0), $R_{21}$, on GMC scale is important to accurately estimate the mass of the GMCs. We thus measured the $R_{21}$ in the strongly barred galaxy NGC1300, where star formation activity strongly depends on galactic structure, on $\sim 100$ pc scale. CO images were obtained from ALMA and Nobeyama 45-m telescope. The resultant typical $R_{21}$ in NGC1300 is $0.57 \pm 0.06$. We f…
The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ; inner $\sim{}200~\rm{}pc$) of the Milky Way is a star formation (SF) environment with very extreme physical properties. Exploration of SF in this region is important because (i) this region allows us to test models of star formation under exceptional conditions, and (ii) the CMZ clouds might be suitable to serve as templates to understand the physics of starburst galaxies in the nearby and the distant universe. For this reason we launched the Galactic Center Molecular Cloud Survey (GCMS), the first systematic study that resolves all major CMZ clouds at interfer…
We report an astrochemical study on the evolution of interstellar molecular clouds and consequent star formation in the center of the barred spiral galaxy M83. We used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to image molecular species indicative of shocks (SiO, CH$_3$OH), dense cores (N$_2$H$^+$), and photodissociation regions (CN and CCH), as well as a radio recombination line (H41$α$) tracing active star-forming regions. M83 has a circumnuclear gas ring that is joined at two areas by gas streams from the leading-edge gas lanes on the bar. We found elevated abundances of the s…
We present the results of the wide-field $^{12}$CO (1--0) observations of the nearby barred galaxy M83 carried out with the Nobeyama Millimeter Array (NMA). The interferometric data are combined with the data obtained with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope to recover the total-flux. The target fields of the observations cover the molecular bar and part of the spiral arms, with a spatial resolution of ~110 pc x 260 pc. By exploiting the resolution and sensitivity to extended CO emission, the impact of the galactic structures on the molecular gas content is investigated in terms of the gas kinematics …
We investigate physical properties of molecular clouds in disc galaxies with different morphology: a galaxy without prominent structure, a spiral barred galaxy and a galaxy with flocculent structure. Our $N$-body/hydrodynamical simulations take into account non-equilibrium H$_2$ and CO chemical kinetics, self-gravity, star formation and feedback processes. For the simulated galaxies the scaling relations of giant molecular clouds or so called Larson's relations are studied for two types of a cloud definition (or extraction methods): the first one is based on total column density position-posit…
We present magnetohydrodynamic simulations aimed at studying the effect of the magnetic suppression of turbulence (generated through various instabilities during the formation of molecular clouds by converging) on the subsequent star formation (SF) activity. We study four magnetically supercritical models with magnetic field strengths $B= 0$, 1, 2, and 3 $μ$G (corresponding to mass--to--flux ratios of $\infty$, 4.76, 2.38, and 1.59 times the critical value), with the magnetic field, initially being aligned with the flows. We find that, for increasing magnetic field strength, the clouds formed …
We conducted 22~GHz 1" JVLA imaging of 100 radio-quiet X-ray selected AGN from the Swift-BAT survey. We find AGN-driven kiloparsec-scale radio structures inconsistent with pure star formation in 11 AGN. The host galaxies of these AGN lie significantly below the star-forming main sequence, indicating suppressed star formation. While these radio structures tend to be physically small compared to the host galaxy, the global star formation rate of the host is affected. We evaluate the energetics of the radio structures interpreted first as immature radio jets, and then as consequences of an AGN-dr…
We investigate the impact of galactic environment on the properties of simulated giant molecular clouds formed in a M83-type barred spiral galaxy. Our simulation uses a rotating stellar potential to create the grand design features and resolves down to 1.5 pc. From the comparison of clouds found in the bar, spiral and disc regions, we find that the typical GMC is environment independent, with a mass of 5e+5 Msun and radius 11 pc. However, the fraction of clouds in the property distribution tails varies between regions, with larger, more massive clouds with a higher velocity dispersion being fo…
Duration and properties of the embedded phase of star formation in 37 nearby galaxies from PHANGS-JWST
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学天文中心）；Cosmic Origins Of Life (COOL) Research DAO（生命宇宙起源（COOL）研究DAO）；Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, Stanford University（斯坦福大学卡弗里粒子天体物理与宇宙学研究所）；INAF — Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri（意大利国家天体物理研究所阿切特里天文台）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Department of Physics, University of Arkansas（阿肯色大学物理系）；Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange（蔚蓝海岸大学、蔚蓝海岸天文台、法国国家科学研究中心拉格朗日实验室）；Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学天文学系）
Thermal images of cold dust in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way, obtained with the far-infrared cameras on-board the Herschel satellite, reveal a 3x10^7 solar masses ring of dense and cold clouds orbiting the Galactic Center. Using a simple toy-model, an elliptical shape having semi-major axes of 100 and 60 parsecs is deduced. The major axis of this 100-pc ring is inclined by about 40 degrees with respect to the plane-of-the-sky and is oriented perpendicular to the major axes of the Galactic Bar. The 100-pc ring appears to trace the system of stable x_2 orbits predicted for the barr…
We develop a simple dynamical model for the evolution of gas in the centres of barred spiral galaxies, using the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ, i.e., the central few hundred pc) as a case study. We show that, in the presence of a galactic bar, gas in a disc in the central regions of a galaxy will be driven inwards by angular momentum transport induced by acoustic instabilities within the bar's inner Lindblad resonance. This transport process drives turbulence within the gas that temporarily keeps it strongly gravitationally stable and prevents the onset of rapid star formation. Howev…
Gas interior to the bar of the Milky Way has recently been shown as the closest example of a Low Ionization (Nuclear) Emission Region--LI(N)ER--in the universe. To better understand the nature of this gas, a sample of face-on galaxies with integral field spectroscopy are used to study the ionized gas conditions of 240 barred and 250 nonbarred galaxies, focusing on those that are most similar to the Milky Way. Strong optical line emission of $[NII]$ $λ6584$, H$α$, $[OIII]$ $λ5007$, and H$β$ are used to diagnose the dominant ionization mechanisms of gas across galaxies and the Galaxy via Baldwin…
To interpret the galactic center H II region complexes as constituents of a barred galaxy's nuclear star-forming ring, we compare 18cm VLA radiocontinuumm, $8-22μ$ MSX IR and 2.6mm BTL and ARO12m CO emission in the inner few hundred pc. Galactic center H II regions are comparable in their IR appearance, luminosity and SED to M17 or N!0, but the IR light distribution is strongly modified by extinction at 8-22$μ$, locally and overall. In Sgr B2 at $l > 0.6$\degr strong radio H II regions are invisible in the IR. In two favorable cases, extinction from individual galactic center molecular clouds …
The formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in spiral galaxies have been investigated in the traditional framework of the combined quasi-stationary density wave and galactic shock model. However, our understanding of the dynamics of spiral arms is changing from the traditional spiral model to a dynamically evolving spiral model. In this study, we investigate the structure and evolution of GMCs in a dynamically evolving spiral arm using a three-dimensional N-body/hydrodynamic simulation of a barred spiral galaxy at parsec-scale resolution. This simulation incorporated self-grav…
Using the PHANGS-ALMA CO (2-1) survey, we characterize molecular gas properties on ${\sim}$100 pc scales across 102,778 independent sightlines in 70 nearby galaxies. This yields the best synthetic view of molecular gas properties on cloud scales across the local star-forming galaxy population obtained to date. Consistent with previous studies, we observe a wide range of molecular gas surface densities (3.4 dex), velocity dispersions (1.7 dex), and turbulent pressures (6.5 dex) across the galaxies in our sample. Under simplifying assumptions about sub-resolution gas structure, the inferred viri…
Star formation in strongly self-gravitating cloud cores should be similar at all redshifts, forming single or multiple stars with a range of masses determined by local magneto-hydrodynamics and gravity. The formation processes for these cores, however, as well as their structures, temperatures, Mach numbers, etc., and the boundedness and mass distribution functions of the resulting stars, should depend on environment, as should the characteristic mass, density, and column density at which cloud self-gravity dominates other forces. Because the environments for high and low redshift star formati…
With ALMA making it possible to resolve giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in other galaxies, it is becoming necessary to quantify the observational bias on measured GMC properties. Using a hydrodynamical simulation of a barred spiral galaxy, we compared the physical properties of GMCs formed in position-position-position space (PPP) to the observational position-position-velocity space (PPV). We assessed the effect of disc inclination: face-on (PPV_face) and edge-on (PPV_edge), and resolution: 1.5 pc versus 24 pc, on GMC properties and the further implications of using Larson's scaling relations f…
We present a study of bar and host disk evolution in a dense cluster environment, based on a sample of ~800 bright (MV <= -18) galaxies in the Abell 901/2 supercluster at z~0.165. We use HST ACS F606W imaging from the STAGES survey, and data from Spitzer, XMM-Newton, and COMBO-17. We identify and characterize bars through ellipse-fitting, and other morphological features through visual classification. (1) We explore three commonly used methods for selecting disk galaxies. We find 625, 485, and 353 disk galaxies, respectively, via visual classification, a single component S'ersic cut (n <= 2.5)…
We present a set of numerical experiments designed to systematically investigate how turbulence and magnetic fields influence the morphology, energetics, and dynamics of filaments produced in wind-cloud interactions. We cover 3D magnetohydrodynamic systems of supersonic winds impacting clouds with turbulent density, velocity, and magnetic fields. We find that log-normal density distributions aid shock propagation through clouds, increasing their velocity dispersion and producing filaments with expanded cross sections and highly-magnetised knots and sub-filaments. In self-consistently turbulent…
Filamentary structures are ubiquitous in the interstellar medium, yet their formation, internal structure, and longevity have not been studied in detail. We report the results from a comprehensive numerical study that investigates the characteristics, formation, and evolution of filaments arising from magnetohydrodynamic interactions between supersonic winds and dense clouds. Here we improve on previous simulations by utilising sharper density contrasts and higher numerical resolutions. By following multiple density tracers, we find that material in the envelopes of the clouds is removed and d…
We performed sub-parsec ($\sim$ 0.014 pc) scale simulations of cloud-cloud collisions of two idealized turbulent molecular clouds (MCs) with different masses in the range of $0.76 - 2.67 \times 10^4$M$_{\odot}$ and with collision speeds of 5 $-$ 30 km/s. Those parameters are larger than Takahira, Tasker and Habe (2014) (paper I) in which the colliding system showed a partial gaseous arc morphology that supports the NANTEN observations of objects indicated to be colliding MCs by numerical simulations. Gas clumps with density greater than $10^{-20}$ g cm$^{-3}$ were identified as pre-stellar cor…
We present results of the $^{12}$CO (1--0) mosaic observations of the nearby barred-spiral galaxy M83 obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The total flux is recovered by combining the ALMA data with single-dish data obtained using the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. The combined map covers a $\sim$13 kpc$^{2}$ field that includes the galactic center, eastern bar, and spiral arm with a resolution of \timeform{2''.03} $\times$ \timeform{1''.1} ($\sim$45 pc $\times$ $\sim$25 pc). With a resolution comparable to typical sizes of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), the CO dist…
A promising supermassive black hole seed formation channel is that of direct collapse from primordial gas clouds. We perform a suite of 3D hydrodynamics simulations of an isolated turbulent gas cloud to investigate conditions conducive to forming massive black hole seeds via direct collapse, probing the impact of cloud metallicity, gas temperature floor and cooling physics on cloud fragmentation. We find there is no threshold in metallicity which produces a sharp drop in fragmentation. When molecular cooling is not present, metallicity has little effect on fragmentation. When molecular cooling…
Gas-rich minor mergers contribute significantly to the gas reservoir of early-type galaxies (ETGs) at low redshift, yet the star formation efficiency (SFE; the star formation rate divided by the molecular gas mass) appears to be strongly suppressed following some of these events, in contrast to the more well-known merger-driven starbursts. We present observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of six ETGs, which have each recently undergone a gas-rich minor merger, as evidenced by their disturbed stellar morphologies. These galaxies were selected because they exhi…
