ALMA OBSERVATIONS OF WARM DENSE GAS IN NGC 1614—BREAKING OF THE STAR FORMATION LAW IN THE CENTRAL KILOPARSEC
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, MS 100-22, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2 West Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008 (China)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía, s/n, E-18008 Granada (Spain)
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400325, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (United States)
- Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), 300 rue de la Piscine, Domaine Universitaire, F-38406 Saint Martin d'Hères (France)
- Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Onsala Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-439 92 Onsala (Sweden)
- Department of Physics, University of Crete, GR-71003 Heraklion (Greece)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96816 (United States)
- CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, ATNF, P.O. Box 76, Epping 1710 (Australia)
- National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States)
We present ALMA Cycle-0 observations of the CO (6-5) line emission and of the 435 μm dust continuum emission in the central kiloparsec of NGC 1614, a local luminous infrared galaxy at a distance of 67.8 Mpc (1{sup ′′}=329 pc). The CO emission is well resolved by the ALMA beam (0.''26 × 0.''20) into a circumnuclear ring, with an integrated flux of f {sub CO(6-5)} = 898 (± 153) Jy km s{sup –1}, which is 63(± 12)% of the total CO (6-5) flux measured by Herschel. The molecular ring, located between 100 pc<350 pc from the nucleus, looks clumpy and includes seven unresolved (or marginally resolved) knots with median velocity dispersion of ∼40 km s{sup –1}. These knots are associated with strong star formation regions with Σ{sub SFR} ∼ 100 M {sub ☉} yr{sup –1} kpc{sup –2} and Σ{sub Gas}∼10{sup 4} M{sub ⊙} pc{sup −2}. The non-detections of the nucleus in both the CO (6-5) line emission and the 435 μm continuum rule out, with relatively high confidence, a Compton-thick active galactic nucleus in NGC 1614. Comparisons with radio continuum emission show a strong deviation from an expected local correlation between Σ{sub Gas} and Σ{sub SFR}, indicating a breakdown of the Kennicutt-Schmidt law on the linear scale of ∼100 pc.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364551
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 799, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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