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| Paper: |
Structured Molecular Gas Reveals Galactic Spiral Arms |
| Volume: |
476, New Trends in Radio Astronomy in the ALMA Era |
| Page: |
279 |
| Authors: |
Sawada, T.; Hasegawa, T.; Koda, J.; Handa, T.; Sugimoto, M. |
| Abstract: |
We studied the spatial structures of molecular gas
and their variation across the Galactic spiral arms
by analyzing wide-field, high-resolution CO J = 1–0 line data.
The data reveal that the bright and compact (structured)
emission is predominantly located in the spiral arms,
whereas the fainter, diffuse emission dominates in the inter-arm regions.
A possible evolutionary sequence of the gas is suggested:
diffuse gas in the inter-arm regions develops compact structures upon
entering the spiral arms; stars form in these structures;
and the gas eventually returns to diffuse, unstructured state
after the spiral arm passage. |
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