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Paper: Disruption of Giant Molecular Associations by Shear Motion in the Spiral Galaxy M51
Volume: 476, New Trends in Radio Astronomy in the ALMA Era
Page: 281
Authors: Miyamoto, Y.; Nakai, N.; Kuno, N.
Abstract: Understanding of the evolution of Giant Molecular Associations (GMAs) is important to improve our knowledge about massive star formation and galaxy evolution. We have investigated the dynamics of the molecular gas and the evolution of GMAs in the spiral galaxy M51 with the NRO 45-m telescope. The velocity components of the molecular gas perpendicular and parallel to the spiral arms were derived at each spiral phase from the distribution of the line-of-sight velocity of the CO gas. In addition, the shear motion in the galactic disk was determined from the velocity vectors at each spiral phase. It was revealed that the distributions of the shear strength and of GMAs are anti-correlation each other. This result suggests that the GMAs are destructed into GMCs by the strong shear, although surviving in the weak shear.
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