Molecular line observations using a variety of tracers are often used to investigate the kinematic structure of molecular clouds. However, measurements of cloud velocity dispersions with different lines, even in the same region, often yield inconsistent results. The reasons for this disagreement are not entirely clear since molecular line observations are subject to a number of biases. In this paper, we untangle and investigate various factors that drive linewidth measurement biases by constructing synthetic position-position-velocity cubes for a variety of tracers from a suite of self-gravitating magnetohydrodynamic simulations of molecular clouds. We compare linewidths derived from synthetic observations of these data cubes to the true values in the simulations. We find that differences in linewidth as measured by different tracers are driven by a combination of density-dependent excitation, whereby tracers that are sensitive to higher densities sample smaller regions with smaller velocity dispersions, opacity broadening, especially for highly optically thick tracers such as CO, and finite resolution and sensitivity, which suppress the wings of emission lines. We find that, at fixed signal to noise ratio, three commonly-used tracers, the J=4->3 line of CO, the J=1->0 line of C^{18}O and the (1,1) inversion transition of NH_3, generally offer the best compromise between these competing biases, and produce estimates of the velocity dispersion that reflect the true kinematics of a molecular cloud to an accuracy of about 10% regardless of the cloud magnetic field strengths, evolutionary state, or orientations of the line of sight relative to the magnetic field.
The kinematics of molecular gas are crucial for setting the stage for star formation. One key question related to the kinematic properties of gas is how they depend on the spatial scale. We aim to describe the CO spectra, velocity dispersions, and especially the linewidth-size relation, of molecular gas from cloud (parsec-) scales to kiloparsec scales in a complete region within the Milky Way disk. We utilise the census of molecular clouds within 2 kpc from our earlier work, together with CO emission data for them from the literature. We study the kinematics and the Larson's relations for the …
We present $\it{Hubble}$ $\it{Space}$ $\it{Telescope}$ proper motions in the direction of the star cluster NGC$\,$419 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Because of the high precision of our measurements, for the first time it is possible to resolve the complex kinematics of the stellar populations located in the field, even along the tangential direction. In fact, the proper motions we measured allow us to separate cluster stars, which move on average with ($μ_α\cosδ^{\rm NGC\,419}, μ_δ^{\rm NGC\,419}$) = ($+0.878\pm0.055$, $-1.246\pm0.048$) mas yr$^{-1}$, from those of the Small Magellanic Cloud …
Infrared dark clouds are kinematically complex molecular structures in the interstellar medium that can host sites of massive star formation. We present 4 square arcminute maps of the 12CO, 13CO, and C18O J = 3 to 2 lines from selected locations within the C and F (G028.37+00.07 and G034.43+00.24) infrared dark clouds (IRDCs), as well as single pointing observations of the 13CO and C18O J = 2 to 1 lines towards three cores within these clouds. We derive CO gas temperatures throughout the maps and find that CO is significantly frozen out within these IRDCs. We find that the CO depletion tends t…
We present high-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of a region of gas flowing in a spiral arm and identify dense gas clouds to investigate their kinematics with respect to a Milky Way model. We find that, on average, the gas in the arms can have a net radial streaming motion of $v_R \approx -9 \,\mathrm{km/s}$ and rotate $\approx 6 \,\mathrm{km/s}$ slower than the circular velocity. This translates to average peculiar motions towards the Galaxy centre and opposite to Galactic rotation. These results may be sensitive to the assumed spiral arm perturbation, which is $\approx …
We have analyzed new CO($J$ = 1-0) data in the region of a reflection nebula NGC 2023 with a particular focus on the detailed kinematical properties of the molecular gas. The results show that there are two velocity components which indicate signatures of dynamical interaction revealed at a high resolution of 19$''$ (= 0.04 pc). Based on the results we propose a hypothesis that two clouds collided with each other and triggered the formation of the B1.5 star HD 37903 in addition to 20 lower mass stars in two small clusters with a size of 2 pc. Although the previous study favored a scheme of tri…
Kinematics of young star clusters in the outer north-eastern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud
Instituto Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Básicas (ICB), CONICET-UNCuyo（基础科学跨研究所）；Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)（国家科学研究委员会）
We report results of proper motions of 15 known Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) old globular clusters (GCs) derived from the Gaia DR2 data sets. When these mean proper motions are gathered with existent radial velocity measurements to compose the GCs' velocity vectors, we found that the projection of the velocity vectors onto the LMC plane and those perpendicular to it tell us about two distinct kinematic GC populations. Such a distinction becomes clear if the GCs are split at a perpendicular velocity of 10 km/s (absolute value). The two different kinematic groups also exhibit different spatial d…
Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) are thought to be potential hosts of the elusive early phases of high-mass star formation. Here we conduct an in-depth kinematic analysis of one such IRDC, G034.43+00.24 (Cloud F), using high sensitivity and high spectral resolution IRAM-30m N$_2$H$^+$ ($1-0$) and C$^{18}$O ($1-0$) observations. To disentangle the complex velocity structure within this cloud we use Gaussian decomposition and hierarchical clustering algorithms. We find that four distinct coherent velocity components are present within Cloud F. The properties of these components are compared to those…
The evolution of molecular clouds in galactic centres is thought to differ from that in galactic discs due to a significant influence of the external gravitational potential. We present a set of numerical simulations of molecular clouds orbiting on the 100-pc stream of the Central Molecular Zone (the central $\sim500$ pc of the Galaxy) and characterise their morphological and kinematic evolution in response to the background potential and eccentric orbital motion. We find that the clouds are shaped by strong shear and torques, by tidal and geometric deformation, and by their passage through th…
Isolated HI clouds with no optical counterparts are often taken as evidence for galaxy-galaxy interactions, though an alternative hypothesis is that these are primordial 'dark galaxies' which have not formed stars. Similarly, certain kinematic features in HI streams are also controversial, sometimes taken as evidence of dark galaxies but also perhaps explicable as the result of harassment. We numerically model the passage of a galaxy through the gravitational field of cluster. The galaxy consists of SPH particles for the gas and n-bodies for the stars and dark matter, while the cluster include…
We investigate the kinematics of neutral gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and test the hypothesis that it is rotating in a disk. To trace the 3D motions of the neutral gas distribution, we identify a sample of young, massive stars embedded within it. These are stars with radial velocity measurements from spectroscopic surveys and proper motion measurements from Gaia, whose radial velocities match with dominant HI components. We compare the observed radial and tangential velocities of these stars with predictions from the state-of-the-art rotating disk model based on high-resolution 21 c…
We report results of proper motions of 25 known Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) clusters (ages ~ 1 - 10 Gyr old) derived from Gaia EDR3 data sets. When these mean proper motions are gathered with existent radial velocity measurements to compose the clusters' velocity vectors, we found the parameter values of a rotation disk that best resemble their observed motions, namely: central coordinates and distance, inclination and position angle of the line-of-node, proper motion in right ascension and declination and systemic velocity, rotation velocity and velocity dispersion. The SMC cluster rotation …
We have analysed the chemical and kinematic properties of the 20 and 50 km s$^{-1}$ molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way Galaxy, as well as those of the molecular ridge bridging these two clouds. Our work has utilized 37 molecular transitions in the 0.65, 3 and 7-mm wavebands, from the Mopra and NANTEN2 telescopes. The 0.65-mm NANTEN2 data highlights a dense condensation of emission within the western part of the 20 km s$^{-1}$ cloud, visible in only four other transitions, which are 3-mm H$^{13}$CN (1--0), H$^{13}$CO$^{+}$ (1--0), HNC (1--0) and N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ (1--0…
We use GAIA DR2 proper motions of the RIOTS4 field OB stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to study the kinematics of runaway stars. The data reveal that the SMC Wing has a systemic peculiar motion relative to the SMC Bar of (v_RA, v_Dec) = (62 +/-7, -18+/-5) km/s and relative radial velocity +4.5 +/- 5.0 km/s. This unambiguously demonstrates that these two regions are kinematically distinct: the Wing is moving away from the Bar, and towards the Large Magellanic Cloud with a 3-D velocity of 64 +/- 10 km/s. This is consistent with models for a recent, direct collision between the Clouds. W…
Star cluster complexes such as the Carina Nebula can have formed in turbulent giant molecular clouds. We perform a series of $N$-body simulations starting from subclustering initial conditions based on hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent molecular clouds. These simulations finally result in the formation of star cluster complexes consisting of several subclusters (clumps). We obtain the inter-clump velocity distribution, the size of the region, and the mass of the most massive cluster in our simulated complex and compare the results with observed ones (the Carina Nebula and NGC 2264). The on…
Data on HII regions, molecular clouds, and methanol masers have been used to estimate the Sun's distance from the symmetry plane zo and the vertical disk scale height h. Kinematic distance estimates are available for all objects in these samples. The Local-arm (Orion-arm) objects are shown to affect noticeably the pattern of the z distribution. The deviations from the distribution symmetry are particularly pronounced for the sample of masers with measured trigonometric parallaxes, where the fraction of Local-arm masers is large. The situation with the sample of HII regions in the solar neighbo…
UVIT Study of the MAgellanic Clouds (U-SMAC) I. Recent star formation history and kinematics of the Shell region in the North-Eastern Small Magellanic Cloud
Study of pre-stellar cloud evolution requires observations with high sensitivity and resolution, and regions of high-mass star formation are particularly challenging. We wish to quantify, to what accuracy the physical conditions within a massive star-forming cloud can be determined from observations. We are particularly interested in the possibilities offered by the Next Generation VLA (ngVLA) interferometer. We use data from a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of star-formation and concentrate on a filamentary structure that has physical properties similar to an infrared-dark cloud. We produce s…
The 3D Structure and Kinematics of the Local Disk-Halo Interface: Intermediate-velocity Clouds are the Minority of High-altitude Clouds in the Solar Neighborhood
Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University（普林斯顿大学天体物理科学系）；National Radio Astronomy Observatory（国家射电天文台）；Dept of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater（威斯康星大学惠特沃分校物理系）；Dept of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校天文学系）；Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics（马克斯·普朗克天体物理学研究所）；Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology (KIPAC), Stanford University（斯坦福大学卡弗里粒子天体物理与宇宙学研究所）
Determination of kinematic distances of WISE & SMGPS H II regions in the Galactic plane using SEDIGISM cloud association
Technical University of Kenya（肯尼亚科技大学）；University of Leeds（利兹大学）；Aberystwyth University（阿伯里斯特威斯大学）；INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania（意大利国家天体物理研究所卡塔尼亚天文台）；University of South Africa（南非大学）
该研究提出通过云关联确定银道面WISE和SMGPS H II区运动学距离的方法，将其与SEDIGISM分子云关联，通过空间和速度建立联系，验证了方法有效性，解决部分速度模糊问题，提供了距离目录并建立研究框架。
Recent observations have found that the age distribution of star clusters (SCs) in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) shows a sharp peak around 2 Gyr ago. However, it is theoretically unclear what physical processes are responsible for such sudden formation of SCs in the SMC. Here we investigate whether massive SCs with initial masses more than $10^5$ $\text{M}_\odot$ can be formed during tidal interaction of the SMC with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) about 2 Gyr ago, based on our new simulations, which include molecular hydrogen formation on dust grains and SC formation within giant molecula…
Unveiling the 3D structure of the central molecular zone from stellar kinematics and photometry: The 50 and 20 km/s clouds
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)（安达卢西亚天体物理学研究所）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University（利物浦约翰摩尔斯大学天体物理研究所）；Max Planck Institute for Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Como Lake Centre for AstroPhysics (CLAP), DiSAT, Università dell’Insubria（因苏布里亚大学DiSAT系科莫湖天体物理中心）；Institute of Space Sciences & Astronomy, University of Malta（马耳他大学空间科学与天文研究所）；Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo（东京大学天文学研究所）
We present SiO J=2-1 maps of the Sgr B2 molecular cloud, which show shocked gas with a turbulent substructure comprising at least three cavities at velocities of [10,40] km s$^{-1}$ and an arc at velocities of [-20,10] km s$^{-1}$. The spatial anti-correlation of shocked gas at low and high velocities, and the presence of bridging features in position-velocity diagrams suggest that these structures formed in a cloud-cloud collision. Some of the known compact HII regions spatially overlap with sites of strong SiO emission at velocities of [40,85] km s$^{-1}$, and are between or along the edges …
We present a new kinematic model for the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), using data from the \gaia\ Data Release 2 catalog. We identify a sample of astrometrically well-behaved red giant (RG) stars belonging to the SMC and cross-match with publicly available radial velocity (RV) catalogs. We create a 3D spatial model for the RGs, using RR Lyrae for distance distributions, and apply kinematic models with varying rotation properties and a novel tidal expansion prescription to generate mock proper motion (PM) catalogs. When we compare this series of mock catalogs to the observed RG data, we find a …
High Velocity Neutral Gas in the Fermi Bubbles: New Kinematic Limits and Spatial Structure
Green Bank Observatory, National Radio Astronomy Observatory（绿岸天文台，国家射电天文台）；Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia（佛罗伦萨大学，物理与天文学系）；INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri（意大利国家天体物理研究所-阿尔切特里天文台）；Department of Astronomy, University of California Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校天文学系）；AURA for ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute（欧洲空间局美国天文研究协会，太空望远镜科学研究所）
We present the ALMA Band 3 and Band 6 results of 12CO(2-1), 13$CO(2-1), H30alpha recombination line, free-free emission around 98 GHz, and the dust thermal emission around 230 GHz toward the N159 East Giant Molecular Cloud (N159E) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). LMC is the nearest active high-mass star forming face-on galaxy at a distance of 50 kpc and is the best target for studing high-mass star formation. ALMA observations show that N159E is the complex of filamentary clouds with the width and length of ~1 pc and 5 pc - 10 pc, respectively. The total molecular mass is 0.92 x 10^5 Msun …
Context. The central molecular zone at the Galactic center is currently being studied intensively to understand how star formation proceeds under the extreme conditions of a galactic nucleus. Knowing the position of molecular clouds along the line of sight toward the Galactic center has had important implications in our understanding of the physics of the gas and star formation in the central molecular zone.It was recently claimed that the dense molecular cloud G0.253 + 0.016 (the Brick) has a distance of $\sim$7.20 kpc from the Sun. That would place it outside of the central molecular zone, a…
The central molecular zone (CMZ) hosts some of the most massive and dense molecular clouds and star clusters in the Galaxy, offering an important window into star formation under extreme conditions. Star formation in this extreme environment may be closely linked to the 3-D distribution and orbital dynamics of the gas. Here I discuss how our new, accurate description of the $\{l,b,v\}$ structure of the CMZ is helping to constrain its 3-D geometry. I also present the discovery of a highly-regular, corrugated velocity field located just upstream from the dust ridge molecular clouds (which includ…
We present results from high resolution optical spectra toward 66 young stars in the Orion B molecular cloud to study their kinematics and other properties. Observations of the H$α$ and Li I 6707 Å lines are used to check membership and accretion properties. While the stellar radial velocities of in NGC 2068 and L1622 show good agreement with that of the molecular gas, many of the stars in NGC 2024 show a considerable offset. This could be a signature of either expansion of the cluster, high degree of the ejection of the stars from the cluster through the dynamical interaction, or the accelera…
The kinematics of MgII absorbers is the key to understanding the origin of cool, metal-enriched gas clouds in the circumgalactic medium of massive quiescent galaxies. Exploiting the fact that the cloud line-of-sight velocity distribution is the only unknown for predicting the redshift-space distortion~(RSD) of MgII absorbers from their 3D real-space distribution around galaxies, we develop a novel method to infer the cool cloud kinematics from the redshift-space galaxy-cloud cross-correlation $ξ^{s}$. We measure $ξ^{s}$ for ${\sim}10^4$ MgII absorbers around ${\sim}8{\times}10^5$ CMASS galaxie…
Context: The high quality of the Gaia mission data is allowing to study the internal kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in unprecedented detail, providing insights on the non-axisymmetric structure of its disc. Aims: To define and validate an improved selection strategy to distinguish the LMC stars from the Milky Way foreground. To check the possible biases that assumed parameters or sample contamination from the Milky Way can introduce in the analysis of the internal kinematics of the LMC using Gaia data. Methods: Our selection is based on a supervised Neural Network classifier us…
We present NH3 and H64a+H63a VLA observations of the Radio Arc region, including the M0.20-0.033 and G0.10-0.08 molecular clouds. These observations suggest the two velocity components of M0.20-0.033 are physically connected in the south. Additional ATCA observations suggest this connection is due to an expanding shell in the molecular gas, with the centroid located near the Quintuplet cluster. The G0.10-0.08 molecular cloud has little radio continuum, strong molecular emission, and abundant CH3OH masers, similar to a nearby molecular cloud with no star formation: M0.25+0.01. These features de…
Measurement of chemical and kinematic structures in prestellar cores is essential for better understanding the star formation process. Here, we study the three prestellar cores (TMC-1C, L1544, and TMC-1) of the Taurus molecular cloud by means of the thioxoethenylidene (CCS) radical and ammonia (NH3) molecule observed with Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array telescope in D, C, and CNB configurations. Our main results are based on the CCS observation of the TMC-1C core, showing complex structures are present. Spatial offset relative to dust emission is observed in the CCS radical. Across a wide regi…
This work extends previous kinematic studies of young stars in the Head of the Orion A cloud (OMC-1/2/3/4/5). It is based on large samples of infrared, optical, and X-ray selected pre-main sequence stars with reliable radial velocities and Gaia-derived parallaxes and proper motions. Stellar kinematic groups are identified assuming they mimic the motion of their parental gas. Several groups are found to have peculiar kinematics: the NGC 1977 cluster and two stellar groups in the Extended Orion Nebula (EON) cavity are caught in the act of departing their birthplaces. The abnormal motion of NGC 1…
Understanding the initial properties of star-forming material and how they affect the star formation process is key. From an observational point of view, the feedback from young high-mass stars on future star formation properties is still poorly constrained. In the framework of the IRAM 30m ORION-B large program, we obtained observations of the translucent and moderately dense gas, which we used to analyze the kinematics over a field of 5 deg^2 around the filamentary structures. We used the ROHSA algorithm to decompose and de-noise the C18O(1-0) and 13CO(1-0) signals by taking the spatial cohe…
Context. Dense molecular filaments are ubiquituous in the interstellar medium, yet their internal physical conditions and formation mechanism remain debated. Aims. We study the kinematics and physical conditions in the Musca filament and the Chamaeleon-Musca complex to constrain the physics of filament formation. Methods. We produced CO(2-1) isotopologue maps with the APEX telescope that cut through the Musca filament. We further study a NANTEN2 $^{12}$CO(1-0) map of the Musca cloud and the HI emission of the Chamaeleon-Musca complex. Results. The Musca cloud contains multiple velocity compone…
We present an expanded distance catalog for 1,710 molecular cloud structures identified in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) version 2, representing a nearly threefold increase over the previous BGPS distance catalog. We additionally present a new method for incorporating extant data sets into our Bayesian distance probability density function (DPDF) methodology. To augment the dense-gas tracers (e.g., HCO+(3-2), NH3(1,1)) used to derive line-of-sight velocities for kinematic distances, we utilize the Galactic Ring Survey 13CO(1-0) data to morphologically extract velocities for BGPS sou…
We present a new measurement of the systemic proper motion of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), based on an expanded set of 30 fields containing background quasars and spanning a $\sim$3 year baseline, using the \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} (\textit{HST}) Wide Field Camera 3. Combining this data with our previous 5 \textit{HST} fields, and an additional 8 measurements from the \textit{Gaia}-Tycho Astrometric Solution Catalog, brings us to a total of 43 SMC fields. We measure a systemic motion of $μ_{W}$ = $-0.82$ $\pm$ 0.02 (random) $\pm$ 0.10 (systematic) mas yr$^{-1}$ and $μ_{N}$ = $-1.21…
The evolution of the molecular interstellar medium is controlled by processes such as turbulence, gravity, stellar feedback, and Galactic shear. AL a part of the ISM-6D https://gxli.github.io/ISM-6D/ project, using Gaia astrometric measurements towards a sample of young stellar objects (YSOs), we study morphology and kinematic structure of the associated molecular gas. We identify 150 YSO associations with distance $d \lesssim 3 \;\rm kpc$. The YSO associations are elongated, with a median aspect ratio of 1.97, and are oriented parallel to the disk midplane, with a median angle of 30$^{\circ}$…
The neutral atomic Hydrogen (H I) kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is revisited in light of two new proper motion estimates. We analysed the intensity weighted H I velocity maps of the ATCA/Parkes and GASS data sets. We corrected the line of sight velocity field for the systemic, transverse, precession, and nutation motions of the disk using two recent proper motion estimates, and estimated the kinematic parameters of the H I disk. The value of position angle (PA) of kinematic major axis estimated using ATCA/Parkes data is found to be similar to the recent estimate of the PA usin…
We have studied the structure and kinematics of the dense molecular gas in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC1) region with the N2H+ 3-2 line. The 6'x9' (~0.7x1.1 pc) region surrounding the Orion KL core has been mapped with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT). The combined SMA and SMT image having a resolution of ~5.4" (~2300 au) reveals multiple filaments with a typical width of 0.02-0.03 pc. On the basis of the non-LTE analysis using the N2H+ 3-2 and 1-0 data, the density and temperature of the filaments are estimated to be ~10^7 cm-3 and ~15-20 K, respectively…
