C. Kramer1 - B. Mookerjea1 - E. Bayet2 - S. Garcia-Burillo3 - M. Gerin2 - F. P. Israel4 - J. Stutzki1 - J. G. A. Wouterloot5
1 - KOSMA, I. Physikalisches Institut,
Universität zu Köln,
Zülpicher Straße 77,
50937 Köln, Germany
2 -
Radioastronomie Millimétrique: UMR 8540 du CNRS,
Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS, 24 rue Lhomond,
75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
3 -
Centro Astronomico de Yebes,
IGN, 19080 Guadalajara, Spain
4 -
Sterrewacht Leiden,
PO Box 9513,
2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
5 -
Joint Astronomy Centre,
660 N. A'ohoku Place, 96720 Hilo, HI, USA
Received 3 May 2005 / Accepted 2 June 2005
Abstract
We present [C I] 3P1-3P0 spectra at four
spiral arm positions and the nuclei of the nearby galaxies M 83
and M 51 obtained at the JCMT. The spiral arm positions lie at
galacto-centric distances of between 2 kpc and 6 kpc. This data
is complemented with maps of CO 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2, and ISO/LWS
far-infrared data of [C II] (158 m), [O I] (63
m), and
[N II] (122
m) allowing for the investigation of a complete
set of all major gas cooling lines. From the intensity of the
[N II] line, we estimate that between 15% and 30% of the
observed [C II] emission originates from the dense ionized phase
of the ISM. The analysis indicates that emission from the diffuse
ionized medium is negligible. In combination with the FIR dust
continuum, we find gas heating efficiencies below
in
the nuclei, and between 0.25 and 0.36% at the outer positions.
Comparison with models of photon-dominated regions (PDRs) with
the standard ratios [O I](63)/[C II]
and
([O I](63)+[C II]
)
vs. TIR, the total infrared
intensity, yields two solutions. The physically most plausible
solution exhibits slightly lower densities and higher FUV fields
than found when using a full set of line ratios, [C II]
/[C I](1-0), [C I](1-0)/CO(3-2), CO(3-2)/CO(1-0),
[C II]/CO(3-2), and, [O I](63)/[C II]
.
The best fits to
the latter ratios yield densities of 104 cm-3 and FUV
fields of
G0=20-30 times the average interstellar field
without much variation. At the outer positions, the observed
total infrared intensities are in agreement with the derived best
fitting FUV intensities. The ratio of the two intensities lies at
4-5 at the nuclei, indicating the presence of other mechanisms
heating the dust. The [C I] area filling factors lie below 2% at
all positions, consistent with low volume filling factors of the
emitting gas. The fit of the model to the line ratios improves
significantly if we assume that [C I] stems from a larger region
than CO 2-1.
Improved modelling would need to address the filling factors of
the various submm and FIR tracers, taking into consideration the
presence of density gradients of the emitting gas by including
cloud mass and size distributions within the beam.
Key words: galaxies: ISM - galaxies: structure - galaxies: individual: M 83, M 51 - ISM: structure - infrared: galaxies - submillimeter
Neutral atomic carbon is thought to form predominantly in surface
layers of molecular clouds where C II recombines and CO is
dissociated due to the far-UV photons governing the chemical
reactions. FUV photons (6
eV) are primarily
responsible for the heating of the surface regions via the
photoelectric effect on dust grains while at larger depth cosmic-ray
induced heating will dominate.
These regions are referred to as photo dissociation regions or, more
generally, as photon dominated regions (PDRs)
(Kaufman et al. 1999; Tielens & Hollenbach 1985; Stoerzer et al. 1996). PDR models
take into account the relevant physical processes, and solve
simultaneously for the chemistry (using an extensive chemical network)
and the thermal balance, as a function of cloud depth.
It is found that the ratio of [C II]/[C I] is an accurate tracer of the
FUV field (Gerin & Phillips 2000), parametrized by G0 in units
of the Habing-field
erg s-1 cm-2(Habing 1968). Another important parameter governing the depth at
which C I forms is the ratio of density over FUV field n/G0(Tielens & Hollenbach 1985). This ratio also determines the efficiency of
converting FUV photons to gas heating, i.e. the photoelectric heating
efficiency
(Bakes & Tielens 1994).
While the Milky Way survey of FIR lines conducted with COBE/FIRAS (Fixsen et al. 1999) showed that [C II] is the dominant cooling line, it also showed the importance of the two finestructure lines of [C I]. Both lines are ubiquitous and the two lines together amount to 75% of the total cooling of all rotational CO lines in the inner galaxy. This picture has also emerged from extragalactic observations of the [C I] 1-0 line. These show again that the cooling due to C I and CO are of the same order of magnitude for most galaxies (Israel & Baas 2002,2003,2001; Bayet et al. 2004). C I is found to be a good tracer of molecular gas, possibly more reliable than CO (Gerin & Phillips 2000).
Several coordinated mapping studies of nearby galaxies have been
started during the past years. The BIMA SONG survey (Regan et al. 2001)
has aimed at obtaining the 12CO emission of 1-0 and 2-1
rotational lines at high spatial resolutions. There exist
velocity-integrated [C II] observations of large samples of galaxies at
1' resolution with the KAO (Stacey et al. 1991) and with ISO
(Malhotra et al. 2001), hereafter MKH01, and
(Negishi et al. 2001; Leech et al. 1999).
The SINGS Spitzer Legacy Project (Kennicutt et al. 2003) has started
imaging 75 galaxies in the infrared,
including M 51.
In the coming years, both SOFIA and the Herschel Space Observatory are
expected to provide velocity-resolved [C II] data at resolutions of
10'', complementary to many current single dish observations of CO and [C I].
In external galaxies where a large number of clouds or even GMCs fill the beam it is difficult to seperate the different contributions and judge their importance. A long standing problem is that a substantial fraction of the [C II] emission may originate from the diffuse ionized and neutral medium. Comparison with [N II] helps to estimate the fraction originating from PDRs, but usually with large uncertainties due to the varying chemical and excitation conditions in different galactic environments (e.g. Contursi et al. 2002). The present study is part of the preparatory work for future airborne and space missions like SOFIA and Herschel. In addition, it may serve as a template for studies of e.g. [C I] and CO in high-z galaxies which have recently become possible (Weiss et al. 2005,2003; Neri et al. 2003; Pety et al. 2004; Walter et al. 2004).
Most extragalactic observations of atomic carbon have so far
concentrated on the bright galactic nuclei or enhanced emission of
edge-on galaxies.
Here, we compare observations of the two nuclei of M 83 and M 51 with
pointed observations at spiral arm positions which show enhanced star
forming activity. The galacto-centric distances of the selected outer
positions lie between 1.8 and 5.8 kpc.
We combine observations of atomic carbon with low and mid-J CO and
13CO data, as well as FIR [C II], [O I](m), and
[N II](
m) data from the ISO data-base and thus include the
brightest gas cooling lines of the far-infrared and submillimeter
regime.
M 83 | M 51 | |
RA(2000) | 13:37:00.5 | 13:29:52.7 |
Dec(2000) | -29:51:55.3 | 47:11:43 |
Type | SAB(s)c(1) | SA(s)bc pec(1) |
Distance [Mpc] | 3.7(5) | 9.6 (4) |
10'' correspond to | 179 pc | 465 pc |
Heliocentric velocity [km s-1] | 516(1) | 463(1) |
Position Angle [deg] | 45 (2) | 170 |
Inclination [deg] | 24 (2) | 20 |
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7.1(3) | 14(3) |
F60/F100 | 0.43(3) | 0.44(3) |
F60 [Jy] | 286(3) | 85(3) |
References:
(1) RC3 catalogue (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991);
(2) Talbot et al. (1979), Tully (1988); (3) Rice et al. (1988); (4) Sandage & Tammann (1975); (5) de Vaucouleurs (1979). |
M 83 (NGC 5236) is the most nearby CO-rich grand-design spiral galaxy, seen almost face-on (Table 1). It has a pronounced bar, with two well-defined spiral arms connected to the starburst nucleus. In this paper, we adopt a distance of 3.7 Mpc (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991), though recent observations of Cepheids indicate a slightly larger distance of 4.5 Mpc (Thim et al. 2003).
Low-J CO maps were obtained by Crosthwaite et al. (2002), Lundgren et al. (2004b,a), Dumke et al. (2001) and Sakamoto et al. (2004). [C I] observations of the center were conducted by Israel & Baas (2002) and Petitpas & Wilson (1998). Pointed KAO observations report strong FIR fine-structure lines towards the nucleus with a rapid fall-off towards the arms (Crawford et al. 1985).
Here, we present new [C I] data of the center and two spiral arm positions on the north-eastern arm and south-western bar-spiral transition zone. The emission of [C II], [N II](122), and [O III](88) observed with ISO/LWS (Brauher 2005, priv. comm.) is strongly enhanced in these interface regions, indicating greatly enhanced star formation rates. ISO/LWS emission from the center was analyzed by Negishi et al. (2001). The north-eastern arm was previously studied by Lord & Kenney (1991) and Rand et al. (1999) who presented OVRO interferometric 12CO 1-0 maps. The eastern position at (89'',38'') presented here corresponds to the bright feature #6 discussed by Rand et al. (1999, Table 4). About 15'' to the east of the CO arm newly formed stars form the optical arm and an HI ridge. At #6, the CO and dust arms coincide while they are offset further to the south. Position ( -80'',-72'') studied here corresponds to a CO 1-0 peak in the south-western bar-spiral transition zone which exhibits a massive GMC complex and luminous H II regions (Kenney & Lord 1991). Note that only less than 5% of the single dish flux is recovered by the interferometric maps (Rand et al. 1999). Thus, relatively smoothly distributed diffuse molecular gas is completely missed.
The nearby grand-design spiral galaxy M 51 (NGC 5194) seen almost face
on (Table 1) is interacting with its small
companion NGC 5195, which lies 4.5' to the north. M 51 is a Seyfert 2
galaxy (Ho et al. 1997). The central AGN is surrounded by a
100 pc disk (Kohno et al. 1996) of dense and warm gas
(Matsushita et al. 1998).
A large amount of observational data are available for this object, including an extended KAO map of [C II] (Nikola et al. 2001). Garnett et al. (2004) used ISO/LWS data of the M 51 H II region CCM 10 to study the ionized gas, finding that abundances are roughly solar.
Several single-dish studies mapped the low-lying rotational 12CO and 13CO transitions. CO 1-0 and 2-1 was mapped by Garcia-Burillo et al. (1993a, b) and Tosaki et al. (2002); Nakai et al. (1994). In this grand-design spiral, CO is tightly confined to the spiral arms. Maps of CO 3-2 and 4-3 were obtained at the HHT by Nieten et al. (1999), Wielebinski et al. (1999), and Dumke et al. (2001) who show that warm molecular gas is extended in M 51 at galacto-centric distances of at least up to 100'', resp. 5 kpc. Single-dish observations of neutral carbon were so far obtained only in the center region by Israel & Baas (2002); Gerin & Phillips (2000), and Israel et al. (2005, in prep.).
Aperture synthesis maps were obtained by Sakamoto et al. (1999); Aalto et al. (1999) and Regan et al. (2001) in CO 1-0 at resolutions of 4''-6''. Recently, Matsushita et al. (2004) mapped the inner region in 12CO 3-2.
Here, we selected two spiral arm positions lying in the northeastern and the southwestern zones, i.e. at 72'',84'' and -84'',-84'', of enhanced [C II] emission tracing enhanced star formation (Nikola et al. 2001). ISO/LWS data are available for these positions, and for the center (Negishi et al. 2001; and Brauher 2005, priv. comm.). The H II region studied by Garnett et al. (2004) using ISO/LWS, CCM 10, lies at about +148'', +45'' (Carranza et al. 1969), 1.5' to the north-west of 72'', 84''.
Line |
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Telescope |
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Refs. | ||
('') | ||||||
M 83 at (0, 0), (89, 38), (-80, -72) | ||||||
[C I] 1-0 | 10 | JCMT 15 m | 0.52 | 1 | point. | |
CO 1-0 | 21 | IRAM 30 m | 0.78 | 1 | point. | |
CO 1-0 | 55 | NRAO 12 m | 0.88 | 2 | map | |
CO 2-1 | 10 | IRAM 30 m | 0.57 | 1 | point. | |
CO 2-1 | 28 | NRAO 12 m | 0.56 | 2 | map | |
CO 3-2 | 25 | CSO 10 m | 0.75 | 3 | map | |
13CO 1-0 | 22 | IRAM 30 m | 0.79 | 1 | point. | |
13CO 2-1 | 10 | IRAM 30 m | 0.60 | 1 | point. | |
M 51 at (0, 0), (72, 84), (-84,-84) | ||||||
[C I] 1-0 | 10 | JCMT 15 m | 0.52 | 1 | point | |
CO 1-0 | 21 | IRAM 30 m | 0.65 | 5 | map | |
CO 2-1 | 10 | IRAM 30 m | 0.46 | 5 | map | |
CO 3-2 | 22 | HHT 10 m | 0.50 | 4 | map | |
13CO 1-0 | 22 | IRAM 30 m | 0.79 | 1 | point. | |
13CO 2-1 | 10 | IRAM 30 m | 0.60 | 1 | point. |
References: 1: new data for this paper; 2: Crosthwaite et al. (2002); 3: Bayet et al. (priv. comm.); 4: Wielebinski et al. (1999), Nieten et al. (1999), Dumke et al. (2001); 5: Garcia-Burillo et al. (1993b). The last column indicates whether single pointings or maps are available. The mapped CO data was Gauss-smoothed to the 80'' ISO/LWS resolution. |
We present here observations of [C I], CO, and 13CO spectra at
four spiral arm positions and the centers of M 51 and M 83
(Table 2). We combine these with ISO/LWS FIR
spectral line data at all six positions together with the FIR
continuum derived from HIRES/IRAS 60m and 100
m maps.
We have observed the fine structure transition of atomic carbon ([C I])
at 492 GHz (609 m, 3P1-3P0; hereafter 1-0)
in M 51 (3 positions) and M 83 (3 positions) using the JCMT 15m
telescope. We used the RxW receiver with a single mixer and the DAS
autocorrelator. Observations were carried out over
35 h in May and June 2003.
We used the double-beamswitch observing mode with a wobbler throw of
3' in the direction of the major axis,
i.e. in the direction of the largest velocity gradient.
Pointing was checked using SCUBA after an initial alignment with RxW
and Jupiter at the start of each shift. It was found to be accurate to
within 2-3''. The atmospheric zenith opacity at 225 GHz
varied slowly between 0.1 and 0.05, corresponding to a
of 2 and 1 at 492 GHz.
After merging the DAS autocorrelator spectra using the SPECX software,
further data analysis was done using the CLASS/GILDAS package of IRAM.
We have observed the 12CO and 13CO 1-0 and 2-1 rotational
transitions at all
six positions in M 51 and M 83 using the IRAM 30 m telescope. These
observations were carried out in double beam switch mode with a
wobbler throw of 4'
using the filterbank of 1 MHz resolution for the 3 mm band and the
4 MHz filterbank for the 1 mm band. Observations were carried out
over 15 h on July, 23rd and 26th, and on September, 10th, 2004.
Pointing and focus were checked and corrected every
2 h. The
pointing accuracy was better than 4''. The amount of precipitable
water vapour varied slowly between 10 and
20 mm. Telescope
parameters are listed in Table 2.
The central area of M 83 covering
was mapped on a
fully-sampled grid of 61 positions with ISO/LWS. M 51 was observed at
13 positions, mainly along a cut through the center and the two
prominent [C II] lobes in the north-east and south-west seen in the KAO map by Nikola et al. (2001). The ISO/LWS line emission data was
uniformly processed by Brauher (2005, priv. comm.) to derive line
fluxes in Wm-2.
To convert to intensities, we use a LWS beam size of 80''(
sr), the mean value published in the
latest LWS Handbook, and extended source corrections factors
(Gry et al. 2003).
Resulting ISO intensities of [C II] (158
m, [N II] (122
m),
and [O I] (63
m) at the positions observed in [C I] are listed in
Table 3.
Since the [O I] (146
m) line was detected only at the center
positions (S. Lord, priv. comm.), we did not include it in the
present analysis.
To derive the far-infrared continuum at all selected positions, we
obtained high-resolution (HIRES) 60m and 100
m IRAS maps
from the IPAC data center
.
Enhanced resolution images were created after 200 iterations using the
maximum correlation method (MCM Aumann et al. 1990). These data were
smoothed to an effective common circular beam of 80'' and then
combined to create maps of the far-infrared flux. The FIR flux is
defined as in Helou et al. (1988):
where FIR is in
W m-2 and I is in Janskys. FIR is a good estimate of the flux
contained between 42.5 and 122.5
m (Helou et al. 1988).
Table 3 lists the FIR flux at the selected positions.
To derive the total infrared flux TIR, we follow the procedure
introduced by Dale et al. (2001) who derived an analytical expression
for the ratio of total infrared flux TIR to the observed FIR flux,
i.e. the bolometric correction, as a function of the
m/100
m flux density ratio from modelling the infrared
SEDs of 69 normal galaxies
For M 83 and for M 51, the total infrared flux is a factor 2.3 larger
than FIR given the global
m/100
m ratio of 0.43
(Table 1).
Positions | HIRES | ISO/LWS | ||
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FIR | [C II] | [N II] | [O I] |
('', '') | ![]() |
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|
M 83: | ||||
(0, 0) |
![]() |
81.8 | 14.1 | 86.7 |
(-80, -72) |
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38.6 | 5.3 | 27.3 |
(89, 38) |
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33.4 | 5.9 | 26.6 |
M 51: | ||||
(0,0) |
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44.1 | 12.3 | 32.2 |
(72, 84) |
![]() |
16.7 | <2.3 | 13 |
(-84, -84) |
![]() |
15.4 | 2.1 | 13.4 |
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Figure 1:
Spectra of M 83 at the central and two spiral arm positions
(Table 2). Offsets are given in arcseconds
relative to the (0, 0) position (Table 1).
Velocities are relative to LSR. All spectra are on the
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Figure 2: Spectra of M 51 at the central and two spiral arm positions (cf. Fig. 1). |
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CO 3-2 | CO 3-2 | CO 2-1 | CO 1-0 | CO 2-1 | [C I] 1-0 | [C I] 1-0 | ||||||
['', ''] | CO 1-0 | CO 2-1 | CO 1-0 | 13CO 1-0 | 13CO 2-1 | 13CO 2-1 | CO 3-2 | ||||||||
M 83: | |||||||||||||||
(0, 0) | 0.22 | 0.28 | 0.6 | 0.64 | 0.93 | 9.34 | 10.02 | 3.73 | 0.58 | ||||||
(-80, -72) | 0.37 | 0.45 | 0.46 | 0.46 | 0.99 | 8.77 | 9.58 | 1.48 | 0.34 | ||||||
(89, 38) | 0.48 | 0.47 | 0.46 | 0.49 | 0.93 | 8.46 | 10.14 | 1.38 | 0.28 | ||||||
M 51: | |||||||||||||||
(0, 0) | 0.56 | 0.68 | 0.55 | 0.76 | 0.73 | 8.31 | 4.62 | 1.4 | 0.4 | ||||||
(72, 84) | 0.62 | 0.73 | 0.6 | 0.76 | 0.8 | 9.27 | 13.81 | 3.19 | 0.3 | ||||||
(-84, -84) | 0.52 | 0.72 | 0.43 | 0.75 | 0.57 | 6.04 | 6.09 | 1.25 | 0.27 |
The main aim of this work is to use the combined FIR ISO/LWS, HIRES/IRAS, and the millimeter/submillimeter line data coherently and to investigate to what degree these give a consistent fit within the framework of a simple model scenario such as PDR excitation. We therefore smoothed the 12CO maps (Table 2) to the ISO/LWS angular resolution of 80'' using Gaussian kernels. Spectra of [C I], CO, and 13CO are displayed in Figs. 1, 2 and integrated intensities in Table 4. Ratios with [C I] and 13CO for which no maps exist were corrected for beam filling (Table 5).
The [C I] lines are widest at the center position with 130 km s-1 FWHM and drop to about 30 km s-1 at the two outer positions. In addition, peak line temperatures drop strongly, leading to a pronounced drop of [C I] integrated intensities and area integrated [C I] luminosities by factors of 10 to 18 at galacto-centric distances of less than 2 kpc (Table 4).
The CO 3-2 transition traces warm and dense gas since its upper
level energy corresponds to
2.8 J(J+1)=33.6 K and the critical
density needed to thermalize this line is
cm-3, only weakly dependent on the
kinetic temperature. Trapping typically reduces the critical
densities by up to an order of magnitude, depending on the optical
depth of the lines.
The CO 3-2/1-0 line ratio of integrated intensities
(Table 5) thus is a sensitive tracer of local
densities for densities of less than
105 cm-3.
Here, both line maps were smoothed to 80'' resolution, beam filling
factors thus cancel out to first order. The estimated calibration
error is 21%. While the 2-1/1-0 ratio is
1 at all positions
indicating that the J=2 state is thermalized, the 3-2/1-0 ratio
drops slightly from 0.60 in the center to 0.46 at the spiral arm
positions.
These ratios indicate that densities are lower than
needed
for thermalization of the J=3 level.
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N(CO)![]() |
N(CO) | M |
![]() |
['', ''] | [cm-3] | [K] | [1016 cm-2/km s-1] | [1016 cm-2] | [106 ![]() |
[cm-3] | |
M 83: | |||||||
(0, 0) | 1.7 | 3000. | 15.0 | 3.2 | 15.79 | 65.16 | 0.42 |
(-80, -72) | 3.5 | 3000. | 12.5 | 3.2 | 7.58 | 31.29 | 0.20 |
(89, 38) | 2.1 | 3000. | 12.5 | 3.2 | 6.69 | 27.60 | 0.18 |
M 51: | |||||||
(0, 0) | 3.6 | 30000. | 12.5 | 3.2 | 17.41 | 484.67 | 0.18 |
(72, 84) | 4.0 | 3000. | 15.0 | 3.2 | 2.07 | 57.76 | 0.02 |
(-84, -84) | 7.4 | 10000. | 12.5 | 3.2 | 5.46 | 151.89 | 0.06 |
The 12CO 2-1 vs. 13CO 2-1 line ratio, as well as the
corresponding 1-0 ratio, trace the total column densities of the
13CO line. The ratios remain constant at 10 for 2-1 and
9 for the 1-0 transition.
The above ratios found at the center position agree within the quoted errors with the ratios presented in Israel & Baas (2001).
In M 83, we find a significant drop of the CI vs. 13CO 2-1 ratio
from about 4 in the center to 1.4 at the two outer positions.
Again, the [C I] line is widest at the center, 100 km s-1 FWHM,
and drops to
30 km s-1 at the two outer positions. The
13CO lines show similar line widths at all three positions.
Peak temperatures of [C I] hardly drop between the center and the two
outer positions. Resulting integrated intensities and luminosities
drop by a factor of
4 only.
The observed CO 2-1/1-0 ratios lie between 0.6 and 0.8 for all three
positions and do not peak at the center. This indicates that not even
the 2-1 line is thermalized in M 51. However, the CO 3-2/2-1 ratios
do not drop as would be expected but equal the CO 2-1/1-0 ratio or
even exceed them, while staying below 0.8. This is difficult to
explain with a single component model as we will show below. The
center CO 3-2/1-0 ratio of 0.55 is in agreement with ratios
previously found with single-dish telescopes which range between
0.5-0.8 at beam sizes of 14'' to 24''(Matsushita et al. 1999; Mauersberger et al. 1999; Wielebinski et al. 1999).
Interferometric observations at
4'' resolution tracing the dense
nuclear gas show a high 3-2/1-0 ratio of 1.9 Matsushita et al. (2004).
High central column densities are indicated in this work by the rather low 12CO/13CO 2-1 ratio of 4.6. In contrast, the outer postions show ratios between 6 and 14.
We find CI vs. 13CO 2-1 ratios of 1 at the center and at
(-84,-84) while (72, 84) exhibits a high ratio of 3.2.
The gradients of [C I] luminosities with galacto-centric distances are strikingly different in M 51 and M 83. M 83 is much more centrally peaked, [C I] luminosities drop by a factor of 18 at only 1.8 kpc distance in M 83. In contrast, luminosities in M 51 drop by only a factor of 4 at galacto-centric distances which are more than a factor of 3 larger, i.e. at 5.8 kpc. However, the central [C I] luminosities of M 51 and M 83 agree within 40%.
The line widths observed at the outer positions of M 51 and M 83 are typical for the disks of these two galaxies (Garcia-Burillo et al. 1992; Handa et al. 1990). See Table 2 of Garcia-Burillo et al. (1993a) for a compilation of CO line widths found in these and several other galaxies.
The CI vs. 13CO 2-1 ratio in the Milky Way is often found to be 1 (e.g. Keene 1995) while Israel & Baas (2002); Israel (2005) find a strong variation of this ratio for 15 galactic nuclei. The [C I] line is stronger than the 13CO 2-1 line for all but three galaxy centers. The highest ratios are about 5. Here, we find a variation between 1.3 and 4.
For galaxy centers, Israel & Baas (2002) found that this ratio is
well correlated with the [C I] luminosity covering a range of
160 K km s-1 kpc2 in the active nucleus of NGC 3079 down to
1 K km s-1 kpc2 in the quiescent center of Maffei 2.
Here, we increase the range down to 0.11 K km s-1 kpc2(Table 4) at the same resolution of 10''. In
contrast to the galaxy centers, the spiral arm positions observed here
do not show a systematic correlation between the [C I]/13CO line
ratio and [C I] luminosity.
As shown above, the observed CO line ratios cannot be explained with a
simple LTE analysis. As a first step in order to estimate the kinetic
temperatures and local densities of the CO emitting gas, we present in
this section the results of slightly more realistic escape probability
radiative transfer calculations of homogeneous spherical clumps
(Stutzki & Winnewisser 1985). We assumed a 12CO/13CO
abundance ratio of 40 (Mauersberger & Henkel 1993). As input, we
use the four ratios of integrated intensities
(Table 5): 12CO 3-2/2-1, 12CO 2-1/1-0,
12CO/13CO 1-0, and 12CO/13CO 2-1. We calculated
model intensities of the three transitions for column densities
1014<N(CO)//(cm-2/(K km s-1)) <1022, local
H2 densities
cm-3<40, and kinetic
temperatures
/K <40. The modelled ratios were
compared with the observed ratios taking into account the
observational error of 21% to derive the
.
The best fitting
N(CO)/
,
n, and
together with the
corresponding minimum reduced
are listed in
Table 6.
Below, we first describe the results of the one-component fits for the positions observed in M 83 and M 51. Much more complete physical models of the emitting regions are presented in the next Sect. 4.2.
at 80'' resolution, the 12CO line ratios do not vary
significantly between the center and the two bright spiral arm
positions observed here. A 12CO 3-2/1-0 ratio of 0.5 indicates
an excitation temperature of 10 K assuming optically thick
thermalized
emission and simply using the detection equation. The escape
probability analysis leads to a similar result
(Table 6). At all three positions, the ratios
are well modelled by a one-component model with a rather low kinetic
temperature of only 12-15 K and a density of
cm-3.
This result does not exclude the existence of a warmer and denser gas
phase as would be traced by higher CO transitions or the 63
m
[O I] line as discussed below. For the center, Israel & Baas (2001)
have in fact deduced a warmer phase by including observations of the
CO 4-3 line in their radiative transfer analysis.
The 12CO and 13CO line ratios found in M 83 are characteristic for dynamically active or starburst regions in the classification scheme of Papadopoulos et al. (2004). In this scheme, extreme starbursts would show similar 12CO 2-1/1-0 and 3-2/1-0 ratios but much higher 12CO/13CO ratios.
in the escape probability analysis of CO and 13CO ratios in M 51, we discarded solutions leading to temperatures below 12.5 K and densities below 103 cm-3 as unphysical. Since the CO J=3-2 is strong at all positions, densities and temperatures must be higher.
The CO 3-2/2-1 ratios are 0.8 at all positions in M 51,
significantly higher than in M 83. This indicates higher densities than
found in M 83. Indeed, the escape probability analysis finds densities
between
and
cm-3. The 12CO/13CO
ratios agree with this solution for low temperatures of
12 K.
However, the observed CO 2-1/1-0 ratios are too low to agree with
this solution.
Neither the temperatures nor the densities are well constrained, and
minimum chi squared values are high. This shows the short coming of a
one-component model even when trying to model only the three lowest
rotational CO transitions. And it is in fact in agreement with the
finding of Garcia-Burillo et al. (1993b) who used the lowest two transitions of
12CO and 13CO and couldn't find a set of
and
fitting simultaneously the line ratios for the arms and
for the central position.
To further constrain the physical conditions at the observed positions
in M 83 and M 51, we compare the observed line intensity ratios with the
results of the model for Photon Dominated Regions (PDRs) by
Kaufman et al. (1999); Tielens & Hollenbach (1985). The physical structure is
represented by a semi-infinite slab of constant density, which is
illuminated by FUV photons from one side. The model takes into account
the major heating and cooling processes and incorporates a detailed
chemical network. Comparing the observed intensities with the
steady-state solutions of the model, allows for the determination of
the gas density of H nuclei, n, and the FUV flux, G0, where G0is measured in units of the Habing (1968) value for the average
solar neighborhood FUV flux,
ergs cm-2 s-1. As has been pointed out in detail by
Kaufman et al. (1999) in their Sect. 3.5.1 and several other authors,
the application of these models to extragalactic observations is not
straightforward since individual molecular clouds are not resolved in
single-dish observations and several phases of the ISM are therefore
observationally coexistent within each beam. The additional many
degrees of freedom in the parameter space for more complex models,
however, are ill constrained by the few observed, beam-averaged line
ratios. Hence, simplistic models, e.g. with only a single source
component, are used to at least derive average properties of the
complex sources. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain some insight
into the spatial structure and the local excitation conditions, as we
will show.
Carbon has a lower ionization potential (11.26 eV) than hydrogen, so that [C II] emission arises not only from photon dominated regions, but also from the ionized phases of the ISM and from the diffuse neutral medium traced by H I.
Analyzing the Milky Way FIR line data obtained with FIRAS/COBE (Fixsen et al. 1999), Petuchowski & Bennett (1993) argue that slightly more than half the [C II] emission in the Milky Way arises from PDRs, the remainder from the extended low density warm ionized medium or diffuse ionized medium (DIM), and an insignificant portion from the ordinary cold neutral medium (CNM).
Here, we use the observed [N II](122 m) and [C II] lines, to estimate
the fraction of [C II] originating from the ionized medium. However, a
thorough analysis would need more FIR emission line data from the
ionized medium, in particular the [N II](205
m) line, to
discriminate the relative importance of the different phases of the
ionized medium (Bennett et al. 1994). Extragalactic observations of the
[N II](205
m) are however very rare to date (Petuchowski et al. 1994).
The components of the ionized phase of the ISM which contribute to the
[C II] emission are dense HII regions (
cm-3)
and the diffuse ionized medium (DIM) (
cm-3)
(Heiles 1994).
The fraction of [C II] stemming from H II regions depends strongly on
the electron density of the ionized medium. Carral et al. (1994) showed
that upto 30% of [C II] stems from H II regions when electron
densities exceed 100 cm-3.
For dense HII regions (
), model calculations
suggest
(Rubin 1985) where
(C/N)
is the abundance ratio. The Galactic abundance
ratio found in dense H II regions is 3.8 (Rubin et al. 1988,1993).
We thus expect to find an intensity ratio of
(
![]() ![]() |
![]() |
n | log(G0) | T![]() |
![]() |
log(G
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
['', ''] | [kpc] | [104cm-3] | [K] | |||||
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) |
M 83: | ||||||||
(0, 0) | 0.00 | 4.0 | 1.50 | 76. | 2.8 | 2.16 | 4.57 | 0.019 |
(-80,-72) | 1.93 | 4.0 | 1.50 | 76. | 12.9 | 1.51 | 1.03 | 0.011 |
(89, 38) | 1.76 | 4.0 | 1.50 | 76. | 15.3 | 1.47 | 0.94 | 0.010 |
M 51: | ||||||||
(0, 0) | 0.00 | 4.0 | 1.25 | 66. | 3.2 | 1.88 | 4.31 | 0.013 |
(72, 84) | 5.40 | 4.0 | 1.25 | 66. | 5.2 | 1.32 | 1.17 | 0.016 |
(-84,-84) | 5.77 | 4.0 | 1.25 | 66. | 14.1 | 1.19 | 0.88 | 0.009 |
The metallicities, parametrized by the oxygen abundances, have been
found to be only slightly supersolar in M 83 and M 51.
Zaritsky et al. (1994) find (O/H) abundances of
and
respectively, at 3 kpc galacto-centric distance, from
visual spectra of H II regions, which is about a factor 3 higher than
the solar metallicity of
(Asplund et al. 2004).
Abundance gradients with radius are found to be shallow in M 83 and M 51
(Zaritsky et al. 1994). More recent observations with ISO/LWS and
modelling of the CCM10 H II region of M 51 by Garnett et al. (2004)
indicate instead that the (O/H) abundances are about a factor of 2
less, i.e. roughly solar. In addition, Garnett et al. (1999) showed
that the (C/N) abundance ratio, which is of interest for the
[C II]/[N II] ratio discussed here, is independent of metallicity in both
normal and irregular galaxies.
We therefore use Galactic abundances to estimate the intensity ratios
in M 83 and M 51. For the Milky Way, Heiles (1994) have estimated
that [N II] originates predominantly from the DIM, contributing
70%.
This was derived from the observed [N II](122)/[N II](205) ratio using
photo ionization models. However, the [N II](205) line has not yet been
observed in M 83 and M 51. We therefore use Eqs. (2) and (1), assuming that [N II] stems solely from H II
regions, or alternatively, solely from the DIM.
Next, we can then derive the fraction of [C II] emission originating from
PDRs:
The ratios found in M 83 and M 51 lie at the low end of the ratios MKH01
found in the sample of 60 unresolved normal galaxies studied. They
show a mean ratio of 8 and a scatter between 4.3 and 29.
Contursi et al. (2002) observed ratios of more than 7.7 in NGC 6946 and
ratios of greater than 4 and 10 in NGC 1313. Higdon et al. (2003) found
ratios between 2.6 and 20 in M 33.
If the [N II] emission originates only from the diffuse ionized medium, then
the major fraction of [C II] arises from this phase, and only a small
fraction from PDRs (Table 8). The observed [C II]/[N II]
is 5.8 at 3 positions, including the two nuclei, which would
indicate that no [C II] emission at all arises from PDRs. This is
however unrealistic, since the emission of the [O I](63
m) line,
stemming from warm, dense PDRs, is strong compared to the [C II] lines,
especially in the nuclei (Table 3). For this reason,
we discard this solution.
Assuming, on the other hand, that the fraction of [C II] from the
ionized medium and all [N II] emission stem only from the dense H II
regions, then a fraction of only 15% to 30% of [C II] originates from
this phase (Eq. (3)), while 70% to 85% of the observed
[C II] emission then stems from PDRs. We prefer this solution and use
it in the PDR analysis discussed below. In an ISO/LWS study of
star-forming regions in M 33, Higdon et al. (2003) have recently used FIR
lines of the ionized medium, i.e. [O III](88 m), [O III](
m)
and others to estimate the electron densities and other parameters of
the emitting gas, estimating that between 7% and 47% of [C II] stems
from H II regions, for their sample of positions. They conclude that
the DIM is not needed to explain the observations.
The predicted [C II] emission from the atomic gas in general, for many galactic nuclei, has been found to be far too weak to account for the observed [C II] emission (Stacey et al. 1991) because the density is not high enough to appreciably excite the [C II] emission at the measured H I column densities. This view was confirmed by (Carral et al. 1994) who conducted a detailed study of FIR cooling lines of NGC 253 and NGC 3256. Both in M 51 and in M 83, no large-scale correlation between H I emission and that of [C II] is seen, indicating again that [C II] does not trace the diffuse neutral medium (Nikola et al. 2001; Crawford et al. 1985).
Nikola et al. (2001) used H I column densities (Rots et al. 1990; Tilanus & Allen 1991) to derive the contribution to the [C II] emission in M 51, assuming the same range of temperatures, densities, and ionization fractions for the warm and cold neutral medium (WNM, CNM) as have been found for the Milky Way. They find that the contribution of the WNM is negligible for most of the M 51 disk except the northwest, which was not studied here. The contribution of the CNM is estimated to be less than 10%-20% in all regions but the northwest.
We have thus not corrected the [C II] emission for a possible contribution from the diffuse neutral medium.
The stellar FUV photons heat the molecular gas and dust which
subsequently cools via the FIR dust continuum and, with a fraction of
less than 1% (Stacey et al. 1991), MKH01 via [C II], [O I](63),
and other cooling lines. To the extent that filling factors are 1 and
other heating mechanisms like cosmic ray heating can be neglected, the
observed TIR continuum intensity should equal the modelled FUV field.
This is also expected if a constant fraction of FUV photons escape
without impinging on cloud surfaces.
The PDR model of Kaufman et al. (1999) assumes a semi-infinite slab
illuminated from one side only. For the extragalactic observations
described here, we however have several PDRs within one beam and the
clouds are illuminated from all sides. Hence, the optically thin total
IR intensity stems from the near and far sides of clouds. Here, this
is taken into account by dividing the observed TIR by 2
(Kaufman et al. 1999):
(cf.
Sect. 2.4).
While this correction holds exactly only for
finite plane parallel slabs illuminated from both sides, it is a good
first approximation. The corrected TIR can then be used to derive the
corresponding FUV intensity via
=
TIRc
ergs cm-2 s-1.
Following the arguments of Kaufman et al. (1999), the additional
factor 2 takes into account equal heating of the grains by photons
outside the FUV band, i.e. by photons of
eV.
We find a variation by one order of magnitude,
(Table 7, Fig. 4).
The two intensity ratios [O I](63)/[C II]
and
([O I](63)+[C II]
)/TIR
,
of the two major PDR cooling
lines and the continuum, have been used extensively to derive the
density and FUV field of the emitting regions
(e.g. MKH01). Since [O I](63) and [C II] are the dominant
coolants, the latter ratio is a good measure of the photoelectric
heating efficiency
(e.g. Kaufman et al. 1999). The former
ratio measures the relative importance of [C II] vs. [O I](63) cooling.
For high FUV fields and high densities, the ratio becomes larger than
one (Kaufman et al. 1999).
In M 83 and M 51, the intensity ratio [O I](63)/[C II]
varies
only slightly between 0.8 and 1.3 (Table 8b). The
heating efficiency varies between
0.25 and 0.36% at the
outskirt positions while it drops to below 0.21% in the centers.
The values which we find in M 83 and M 51 lie within the range covered
by MKH01, who find heating efficiencies ranging between 0.3%
and
0.05% for the 60 galaxies studied, while the [O I]/[C II]
ratios range between 0.3 and
10. Though the scatter is large,
the heating efficiency tends to be high >
for [O I]/[C II] ratios
of less than 2. The [O I](63)/[C II]
ratios found in M 83 and
M 51 agree roughly with the average value found by MKH01, while the
heating efficiencies in M 83 and M 51 span the average value of MKH01
upto the highest efficiencies found by them.
MKH01 corrected the observed [C II] emission by roughly 50% when taking into account the contribution from the ionized medium, based on the Milky Way results. Here, we corrected by only 15% to 30% (Table 8b). This uncertainty in how best to correct the [C II] fluxes needs to be considered when comparing the derived heating efficiencies and [O I]/[C II] ratios.
The small scatter of the observed two ratios at the 6 positions in M 83
and M 51 indicates that the emitting gas has similar physical
properties. Comparison with the results of the Kaufman PDR model
shows that two solutions exist (Fig. 3). The data
can be reproduced either by high FUV fields at low densities or by low
FUV fields and high densities. The high-G0 solution indicates
and
.
As we will show, the low-G0 solution is less plausible. It
indicates rather high densities of
and low FUV fields of
.
In this case, the observed [C II] intensities are more than three
orders of magnitude larger than the modelled intensities which would
indicate that many PDR slabs along the lines of sight. Since the
optical depth of the [C II] line in the line centers is expected to be
about one (Kaufman et al. 1999), this scenario is discarded. This
argument also holds when velocity filling is taken into account, since
the velocity filling factor is <40 at all positions, as discussed
below. We note that Higdon et al. (2003) in their analysis of ISO/LWS
data of M 33, also discussed the two possible PDR solutions, and,
following a different line of reasoning, also preferred the high-G0solution.
The n,G0 values we find for the high-G0 solution, agrees with
the average values found by MKH01 who also exclude the low-G0solution. Their sample of 60 unresolved galaxies covers a slightly
larger range of values:
and
.
Our values also agree with the average value
found in NGC 6946 by Contursi et al. (2002).
In order to determine with greater confidence the densities and UV
fluxes which can explain the intensity ratios, we have performed a
fitting of the observed 5 line intensity ratios [C II]
/[C I](1-0), [C I](1-0)/CO(3-2), CO(3-2)/CO(1-0), [C II]/CO(3-2),
and, [O I](63)/[C II]
relative to the predictions of the PDR
model by Kaufman et al. (1999):
![]() |
Figure 3:
Comparison of the observed intensity ratios
[O I](63 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
[C II]
![]() |
[C II]
![]() |
[O I](63) | ![]() |
||
[N II](122) | [C II]
![]() |
[C II]
![]() |
[%] | |||
a) [N II] only from the DIM: | ||||||
M 83: | ||||||
0, 0 | 5.8 | 0.02 | 57.41 | 0.12 | ||
-80,-72 | 7.3 | 0.22 | 3.18 | 0.22 | ||
89, 38 | 5.7 | 0.00 | - | 0.17 | ||
M 51: | ||||||
0, 0 | 3.6 | 0.00 | - | 0.08 | ||
72, 84 | 7.3 | 0.22 | 3.59 | 0.16 | ||
-84,-84 | 7.4 | 0.23 | 3.78 | 0.21 | ||
b) [N II] only from H II-regions: | ||||||
M 83: | ||||||
0, 0 | 5.8 | 0.81 | 1.31 | 0.21 | ||
-80,-72 | 7.3 | 0.85 | 0.83 | 0.36 | ||
89, 38 | 5.7 | 0.81 | 0.99 | 0.35 | ||
M 51: | ||||||
0, 0 | 3.6 | 0.69 | 1.06 | 0.16 | ||
72, 84 | 7.3 | 0.85 | 0.91 | 0.25 | ||
-84,-84 | 7.4 | 0.85 | 1.02 | 0.33 |
Inspection of Fig. 4 shows that, at the
latter three positions, the [C II]
/[C I] ratio indicates
higher FUV fields than the best fitting solution. In addition,
Figure 4 also shows that the CO 3-2/1-0 line
ratios indicates systematically lower densities than the observed
[C I]/CO 3-2 ratios. This holds to varying degrees for all positions
and for G0>10. By assuming [C I] intensities which are a factor 2
higher, the quality of the fit is considerably improved, while the
best fitting G0 and density stay constant at all positions. At
(-80, -72) in M 83 for example, the
is improved from 12.9 to 3.4. This indicates that the beam filling factors of the [C I]
emission, derived from the CO 2-1 data (Table 5), are
too small, i.e. [C I] is more extended than CO.
We also conclude that our results are consistent with the assumption that only the dense ionized medium contributes to the [C II] emission. There is no need for an extended diffuse component.
Overall, the observed five ratios cannot be well fitted with a single
plane-parallel PDR model of constant density at any of the positions.
This is not surprising as the excitation requirements of the various
tracers collected here vary widely. Especially, the critical densities
vary between
cm-3 for the lower [C I] transition and
cm-3 for the [O I] 63
m transition. Any density
gradients in the emitting medium may thus lead to the above
discrepancies with a single PDR model depending also on the chemical
and temperature structure. In addition, the large difference between
local densities derived here and beam averaged densities of more than
three orders of magnitude (Table 6) shows that
the emitting volume must be filled with very small but dense
structures. From many Galactic observations, it is expected that
these structures show a spectrum of masses, adding to the complexity
ignored here.
When comparing the observed intensities with the model results, the
velocity filling also has to be taken into account. The observed [C I]
line widths
range between 30 and
130 km s-1 FWHM (cf. Sects. 3.1 and 3.2) measuring the dispersion of clouds within the
beam for these extragalactic observations. On the other hand, the
microturbulent velocity dispersion
of the gas of one PDR
model is set to 1.5 km s-1 (Kaufman et al. 1999), corresponding to
a Gaussian FWHM
of 3.5 km s-1 as is
typical for individual Galactic clouds. To calculate the [C I] area
filling factors (Table 7), we divided the observed
[C I] intensities by the predicted [C I] intensity from the best fitting
model, corrected for beam (Table 5) and velocity
filling, viz.,
We have studied all major submillimeter and far infrared cooling lines together with the dust total infrared continuum at the center positions of the two galaxies M 83 and M 51 and at four spiral arm positions.
We observed [C I] 1-0 at the six positions at 10'' resolution.
Complementary [C II], [O I](63), and [N II](122) data were obtained from
ISO/LWS at 80'' resolution. CO maps of the lowest three
transitions were obtained from the literature and smoothed to the
ISO/LWS resolution. We also obtained pointed 13CO 1-0 and 2-1
data at all positions. In order to allow a comparison of all these
data, the [C I] and 13CO data were scaled with beam filling
factors derived from the 12CO data. For completeness, we also
obtained the total far-infrared continuum intensities from
HIRES/IRAS m and
m data.
Acknowledgements
We thank Steve Lord for valuable discussions. We would like to thank the JCMT and the IRAM 30 m staff for providing excellent support during several long runs at the Mauna Kea and the Pico Veleta. We are greatful to Michael Dumke for providing us with HHT CO 3-2 and 4-3 M 51 data and Lucian Crosthwaite for NRAO CO 1-0 and 2-1 M 83 data. And we thank Jim Brauher, Steve Lord, and Alessandra Contursi for providing us with the ISO/LWS line fluxes of both galaxies. The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of the United Kingdom, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and the National Research Council of Canada. This work has benefited from research funding from the European Community's Sixth Framework Programme. We made use of the NASA IPAC/IRAS/HiRes data reduction facilities.
![]() |
Figure 4:
Comparison of the observed line intensity ratios
[C II]
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |