arXiv:1711.06235v1 [astro-ph.GA] 16 Nov 2017 htaecnitn ihtevlcte fteOC hr sn appar non no and is clouds There molecular OSC OSC. these the of of density) velocities column 17 the molecular Most are (e.g., with orbit. there consistent Solar but are the Arm, that beyond Outer originating the line with emission associated one least at have msinin emission r ptal onietwt h aatclniuelttd ( longitude-latitude Galactic the with coincident spatially are rniin oad7 H 78 toward transitions eew s h rzn ai bevtr AO 2mtlsoeto telescope m 12 (ARO) Observatory th (C Radio monoxide in Arizona carbon seen the and is use formation, uncharacteriz we OSC largely star Here the remains and distance OSC gas Scutum-Centaur the this molecular well-known in At between tracers the Galaxy. formation of star outer end of the distant to very bar the Galactic be may OSC 5 6 4 3 2 1 USA. USA. duc srnmra h re akOsraoy ..Bx2 Box P.O. Observatory, Bank Green the at Astronomer Adjunct nttt o srpyia eerh eateto Astro of Department Research, Astrophysical for Institute etrfrGaiainlWvsadCsooy etVirgini West Cosmology, and Waves Univers Gravitational Virginia for West Center Astronomy, and Ch Rd., Physics Edgemont of Department 520 Observatory, 400 Astronomy Box Radio P.O. National Virginia, of University Department, Astronomy h ue ctmCnarsam(S)i h otdsatmolecu distant most the is (OSC) arm Scutum-Centaurus Outer The yee sn L using 2018 Typeset 6, July version Draft ryV Wenger, V. Trey ABNMNXD BEVTOSTWR TRFRIGRGOSI REGIONS FORMING STAR TOWARD OBSERVATIONS MONOXIDE CARBON Keywords: ∼ 0 fortres nttl edtc 117 detect we total, In targets. our of 80% A T E X aay tutr,IM oeue,rdolns S,surveys ISM, lines: radio molecules, ISM: structure, Galaxy: twocolumn ii ,2 1, eincniae hsnfo the from chosen candidates region sdA Khan, A. Asad tl nAASTeX61 in style CTMCNARSSIA ARM SPIRAL SCUTUM-CENTAURUS .D Anderson, D. L. RvsdJl ,21 umte TVW) – Submitted 2018 6, July (Revised 1 ihlsG Ferraro, G. Nicholas 12 oy otnUiest,75Cmowat vne Boston, Avenue, Commonwealth 725 University, Boston nomy, Oeiso ie n 8 and lines emission CO ABSTRACT nvriy hsntRdeRsac ulig Morgantow Building, Research Ridge Chestnut University, a 2,Caltevle A29442,USA. 22904-4325, VA Charlottesville, 325, ,5 4 5, 3, t,P o 35 ognonW 60,USA. 26506, WV Morgantown 6315, Box PO ity, rotsil,V 20,USA. 22903, VA arlottesville, re akW 44,USA. 24944, WV Bank Green , 12 Oad40 and CO n .M Bania M. T. and ,b ℓ, WISE S ou sdfie yH by defined as locus OSC ) d xrglci tde hwasrn correlation strong a show studies Extragalactic ed. 1 )eiso a eetydsoee nteOSC. the in discovered recently was emission O) aao fGlci H Galactic of Catalog aaS Balser, S. Dana n ieec ewe h hsclproperties physical the between difference ent 13 bev the observe sam hc tece rmteedo the of end the from stretches which arm, us a prlamkoni h ik a.The Way. Milky the in known arm spiral lar OCmlclrcod ihnorsample. our within clouds molecular –OSC Oeiso ie.Aot23o u targets our of 2/3 About lines. emission CO ftedtcin eodteSlrobtare orbit Solar the beyond detections the of rtGlci udat h population The quadrant. Galactic first e 6 13 Oeiso ie ihLRvelocities LSR with lines emission CO 12 OJ=10and 1–0 = J CO 2 .P Armentrout, P. W. ii i msin edtc CO detect We emission. H OUTER THE N ein.Teetargets These Regions. 13 OJ=1–0 = J CO A 02215, MA, ,W 26505, WV n, ,4 3, 2 Wenger et al.
1. INTRODUCTION suming a log-periodic spiral arm model. First quadrant ◦ data from the MWISP for the longitude range of 35 < Galactic structure in the Milky Way is difficult to ◦ determine because of our location within the disk ℓ< 45 reveal 168 molecular clouds consistent with the − ± −1 and the difficulties in deriving accurate distances. OSC (ℓ, v) locus, defined by VLSR = 1.6 ℓ 13.2kms . There is strong evidence, however, that the Milky These molecular clouds have typical masses and sizes of × 3 Way is a barred spiral galaxy (e.g., Churchwell et al. 3 10 M⊙ and 5 pc, respectively (Sun et al. 2017). 2009). Most barred spiral galaxies are Grand Design Detection of CO does not necessarily imply star for- galaxies, with two prominent symmetric spiral arms mation. Observations of high-mass star formation trac- (Elmegreen & Elmegreen 1982). Understanding the ers are therefore critical for characterizing the OSC. H ii Milky Way structure is important since bars and spiral regions are the archetypical tracers of star formation arms have dynamical effects (e.g., radial migration) and and spiral structure. As part of the H ii Region Discov- influence star formation (e.g., shock gas). ery Survey, Anderson et al. (2015) discovered six H ii To our knowledge, Dame & Thaddeus (2011) were the regions whose radio recombination line (RRL) emission first to connect the Scutum-Centaurus (SC) spiral arm velocities are consistent with the OSC (ℓ, v) locus de- − ± −1 from its beginning at the end of the bar in the in- fined by VLSR = 1.6 ℓ 15kms . There are four ner Galaxy to the outer Galaxy in the first quadrant. additional H ii regions in the WISE Catalog of Galactic They called this outermost section the Outer Scutum- H ii Regions consistent with this definition of the OSC Centaurus (OSC) arm. In the first quadrant, the OSC (Anderson et al. 2012). is at a distance between 15kpc and 19kpc kpc from the RRL emission is the best tracer of high-mass star for- Galactic Center (GC) and between 20kpc and 25kpc mation, but it is faint at the large distances of the OSC. from the Sun (Armentrout et al. 2017). The connection Armentrout et al. (2017) took a different approach and between the SC and OSC arm segments, however, re- used the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to observe the mains hypothetical. Toward the GC, velocity crowding dense molecular gas tracers NH3 (J,K) = (1,1), (2,2), → and complex structure prohibits clear identification of (3,3) and H2O 6(1,6) 5(2,3) toward 75 WISE H ii re- spiral structure. The H i emission that has now been gions and H ii region candidates located within the OSC associated with the OSC arm was detected long ago. (ℓ,b) locus as defined by H i (Dame & Thaddeus 2011). The arm appears in the early 21 cm maps of both Kerr Because these targets were identified as H ii region can- (1969) and Weaver (1974). Yet it took decades to trace didates based on their mid-infrared morphology, these the SC spiral arm from the bar to the outer Galaxy. molecular lines trace dense gas that is more likely to be Dame & Thaddeus (2011) carefully traced the OSC associated with star formation. Any detected spectral in the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) H i 21 cm line all- line probably indicates an active star formation region. sky survey data (Hartmann & Burton 1997; Arnal et al. About 20% of the targets were detected in either ammo- 2000; Bajaja et al. 2005; Kalberla et al. 2005) and then, nia or water maser emission, but only two have velocities using the Center for Astrophysics 1.2 m telescope, de- consistent with the OSC. tected molecular gas in the arm for the first time, at 10 Armentrout et al. (2017) also observed a similar sam- locations coincident with HI emission peaks. A CO map ple of OSC targets in radio continuum at 8–10 GHz with was made of one location revealing a molecular cloud the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA). About 60% of 4 the targets were detected in radio continuum with the with mass and radius of 5 × 10 M⊙ and 47pc, respec- tively. Koo et al. (2017) recently re-analyzed the LAB JVLA. Five of these are associated with the locus of survey data using a peak-finding algorithm and identi- the OSC. Together, RRL and continuum emission al- fied the OSC arm as a 20kpc long H i structure coinci- lowed various H ii region physical properties to be de- dent with several H ii regions and molecular clouds. rived. Associating the radio continuum with the molec- Sun et al. (2015) suggested a possible extension of the ular transition, however, is less secure since the molec- OSC from the first Galactic quadrant into the second ular cloud may not be associated with the H ii region quadrant. Their results are part of the Milky Way (Anderson et al. 2009). Nonetheless, assuming they are Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP) project to map 12CO related yields a distance. If the hydrogen-ionizing pho- ◦ ◦ and 13CO from Galactic longitudes −10 <ℓ< 250 ton flux is produced by a single star, then the observed ◦ ◦ and Galactic latitudes −5 15kpc) high-mass star for- 2 4 ◦ ◦ mation is ongoing in the Milky Way. 10 − 10 M⊙ that lie between 120 <ℓ< 150 and are roughly consistent with an extension of the OSC as- CO in the OSC 3
G026.418+1.683 G021.541+1.676 − − 25 43.32 km s 1, QF = A 6 31.07 km s 1, QF = B . −1 5 33 66 km s , QF = B 20 4 15
(K) (K) 3 ∗ ∗ A A
T 10 T 2 5 1 0 0 30 40 50 60 70 80 20 30 40 50 60 70 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G054.491+1.579 G042.210+1.081 − . −1 − . −1 8 38 82 km s , QF = C 0.20 57 02 km s , QF = B −36.25 km s−1, QF = C 0.15 6 0.10
(K) (K) 0.05
∗ 4 ∗ A A
T T 0.00 2 −0.05 −0.10 0 −0.15 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 0 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
Figure 1. Representative 12CO spectra for different quality factors (QF). Plotted is the antenna temperature as a function of the LSR velocity. The black curves are the data and the red curves are Gaussian fits to the data. The LSR velocity of each Gaussian profile, together with the QF, is shown in the right-hand corner of the plot. Here we seek to explore the molecular content in selected all H ii region candidates in the WISE Catalog the OSC using 12CO and 13CO transitions, which are of Galactic H ii Regions (Anderson et al. 2012) that lay brighter than the molecular line transitions observed by near the OSC (ℓ,b) locus defined as b =0.375◦+0.075×ℓ Armentrout et al. (2017). Since molecular clouds need within the range 20◦ <ℓ< 70◦. Many of these tar- not be forming high-mass stars, carbon monoxide is not gets have measured radio continuum emission and are as good a tracer of high-mass star formation as RRLs, most likely bona fide H ii regions (Armentrout et al. NH3,orH2O, but detection is much more likely at these 2017). In addition, we included 10 H ii regions from large distances. Following Armentrout et al. (2017) we (Armentrout et al. 2017) with RRL velocities within the −1 only target H ii regions and H ii region candidates from OSC (ℓ, V ) locus defined as VLSR = −1.6 ℓ ± 15kms . the WISE Catalog of Galactic H ii Regions. These tar- Since 12CO is often optically thick in Galactic molecu- gets all have the same characteristic infrared morphol- lar clouds, we observed the optically thin 13CO J=1–0 ogy which increases the probability that the molecular transition at 110.20132 GHz in a subset of targets with gas is associated with high-mass star formation. bright 12CO detections to provide a more accurate mea- sure of the molecular column density. 2. OBSERVATIONS AND DATA REDUCTION The ARO 12m telescope is the European ALMA pro- We used the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO) 12 m totype antenna that began operation on Kitt Peak in telescope to observe the 12CO J=1–0 transition at 2014. The telescope’s half-power beam-width (HPBW) 115.27120GHz toward 78 H ii regions and H ii region is 54′′ and 57′′ at 115GHz and 110GHz , respectively. candidates located in the first Galactic quadrant. We 4 Wenger et al.
G050.901+1.056 G061.154+2.170 4 . 2 0 12CO 12CO 13CO 3 13CO 1.5
(K) 1.0 (K) 2 ∗ ∗ A A T T 0.5 1
0.0 0 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G062.194+1.715 G066.608+2.061 7 5 12CO 12CO 6 13CO 13CO 4 5 3 4 (K) (K) ∗ ∗ A A 3
T 2 T 2 1 1 0 0 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
Figure 2. 12CO (black) and 13CO (blue) spectra of targets where the association of 12CO emission and 13CO emission was not straightforward. In G050.901+1.056 and G062.194+1.715 there are two 13CO components that correspond to one 12CO component. In G066.608+2.061 there is one 13CO component that corresponds to two 12CO components. Finally, in G061.154+2.170 there are 12CO components at velocities where the 13CO emission is corrupted by emission in the Off position. The main beam efficiency is & 90% at these frequencies. total power pairs were sufficient to detect 12CO emission Our observations were performed between February 11– but in some cases we integrated longer. The telescope 16, 2016. The receiver consisted of the ALMA band 3, pointing and focus were corrected every 1–2 hours by dual polarization, sideband-separating mixers with typ- peaking on Jupiter, Venus, or Saturn. The typical point- ical on-sky system temperatures of ∼ 300K. We em- ing accuracy was ∼ 2′′ rms. At the start of each session ployed both the filter bank spectrometer with 256 chan- we checked the tuning of the spectrometers by observing nels at 2MHz spectral resolution (5kms−1 at 115 GHz), the test source M17SW. and the millimeter autocorrelator (MAC) with 4096 The data were reduced and analyzed using TM- channels at 195kHz spectral resolution (0.5kms−1 at BIDL, an IDL single-dish software package (Bania et al. 115 GHz). Both spectrometers accept two intermedi- 2016).1 The data reduction and analysis were performed ate frequency signals consisting of the two orthogonal independently by three of the authors. Each spectrum polarizations. Here we only consider data from the was visually inspected. We discarded ∼1% of the spec- MAC spectrometer given the narrow line widths of CO tra due to poor baseline structure. For each target the (∼ 1kms−1). The typical atmospheric optical depth at data were averaged over all total power pairs and po- zenith was τ0 ∼ 0.2. larizations to produce a single, averaged spectrum. We We made total power, position switched observations modeled the spectral baselines with a third-order poly- where the reference position (Off) is offset by 20′ in az- nomial function that was subtracted from the data to imuth from the source (On). The On and Off positions were observed for 5 minutes each with a switching rate of 1 V7.1, see https://github.com/tvwenger/tmbidl 30 seconds, for a total time of 10 minutes. Typically 1–2 CO in the OSC 5
G028.319+1.243 G033.008+1.151 0.4 G038.627+0.813 5 −45.75 km s−1, QF = A −46.84 km s−1, QF = A −56.25 km s−1, QF = B 4 0.3 −52.76 km s−1, QF = B 4 3 . 3 0 2 (K) (K) (K)
∗ ∗ ∗ . A A 2 A 0 1
T 2 T T . 1 1 0 0
0 0 −0.1 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G039.185-1.421 G040.955+2.473 4 G041.304+1.997 −55.67 km s−1, QF = A −58.54 km s−1, QF = A −57.09 km s−1, QF = A − 2.5 − 7.17 km s 1, QF = A 6.87 km s 1, QF = A 1.5 3 2.0 1.0 1.5
(K) (K) (K) 2 ∗ ∗ ∗ A A A
T T 1.0 T 0.5 1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G041.810+1.503 G042.210+1.081 G046.368+0.802 0.25 − . −1 − . −1 − . −1 . 61 55 km s , QF = B 0.20 57 02 km s , QF = B 5 59 92 km s , QF = A 0 20 −48.87 km s−1, QF = B −35.60 km s−1, QF = A . 0.15 0 15 4 0.10 0.10 3 (K) 0.05 (K) 0.05 (K) ∗ ∗ ∗ A A A T 0.00 T 0.00 T 2 −0.05 −0.05 1 −0.10 −0.10 0 −0.15 −0.15 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 0 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G046.375+0.897 G054.094+1.749 G061.085+2.502 6 −63.49 km s−1, QF = C 0.6 −85.29 km s−1, QF = A −84.29 km s−1, QF = A − . 5 −61.79 km s 1, QF = C 0.5 2 0 − −59.44 km s 1, QF = C . 4 0 4 1.5 0.3
(K) 3 (K) (K)
∗ ∗ ∗ . A A 0.2 A 1 0 T 2 T T 0.1 0.5 1 0.0 0 −0.1 0.0 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G061.180+2.447 G062.578+2.387 5 −84.81 km s−1, QF = A −89.09 km s−1, QF = A 10 −69.20 km s−1, QF = C 4 −1 8 −65.33 km s , QF = C 3 6 (K) (K) ∗ ∗ A A
T 2 T 4 1 2 0 0 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
Figure 3. 12CO spectra of emission lines originating within the OSC. Plotted is the antenna temperature as a function of the LSR velocity. The black curves are the data and the red curves are Gaussian fits to the data. The LSR velocity of each Gaussian profile, together with the QF, is shown in the right-hand corner of the plot. The vertical black line indicates the RRL velocity, when available. 6 Wenger et al.
G033.008+1.151 G039.185-1.421 G040.955+2.473 0.25 − . −1 − . −1 − . −1 0.4 47 04 km s , QF = A 55 30 km s , QF = A . 58 60 km s , QF = A 0.3 0 20 0.3 0.15 . 0 2 0.10 0.2 (K) (K) . (K) 0.05 ∗ ∗ ∗ A . A 0 1 A T 0 1 T T 0.00 . 0.0 0 0 −0.05 −0.10 −0.1 −0.1 −0.15 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −10 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G041.304+1.997 G046.368+0.802 G046.375+0.897 − − − . −57.11 km s 1, QF = A −60.13 km s 1, QF = A −63.51 km s 1, QF = C 0 3 −1 −1 6.95 km s , QF = A 0.6 0.6 −59.42 km s , QF = C 0.2 0.4 0.4 (K) 0.1 (K) (K) ∗ ∗ ∗ A A A T T 0.2 T 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 −0.1 −60 −40 −20 0 20 40 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −80 −70 −60 −50 −40 −30 −20 −1 −1 −1 VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s ) VLSR (km s )
G061.180+2.447 . − 0 7 −84.74 km s 1, QF = A 0.6 0.5 0.4
(K) 0.3 ∗ A
T 0.2 0.1 0.0 −0.1 −100 −90 −80 −70 −60 −50 −1 VLSR (km s )
Figure 4. 13CO spectra of emission lines originating within the OSC. Plotted is the antenna temperature as a function of the LSR velocity. The black curves are the data and the red curves are Gaussian fits to the data. The LSR velocity of each Gaussian profile, together with the QF, is shown in the right-hand corner of the plot. The vertical black line indicates the RRL velocity, when available. remove any sky continuum emission or residual baseline sion, we eliminated these components from any further structure in the spectrum. We fitted a Gaussian func- analysis. The 13CO spectra were analyzed in the same tion to each profile using a Levenberg-Markwardt least manner. squares method (Markwardt 2009) to derive the peak We assigned a Quality Factor (A, B, or C) to every CO intensity, the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) line emission line. This judgment was based on the signal- width, and the local standard of rest (LSR) velocity. to-noise ratio and expected line properties (e.g., the line We compared the results of each independent analy- widths should be a few kms−1 at most). A quality sis. The results were similar for ∼90% of the spectra. factor of “A” was given to profiles with a signal-to-noise Any differences typically involved how best to fit com- ratio larger than 10 with no blending and flat spectral plex, blended profiles. Multiple 12CO emission compo- baselines. Targets with either lower signal-to-noise ratio nents were detected in about 2/3 of the targets. These or some blending of lines were given a quality factor directions thus contain several 12CO clouds along the “B”. Here the blending should not be so severe that line-of-sight. Furthermore, because CO is pervasive in the individual peaks could not be visually detected. A the inner Galactic plane, there was often 12CO emis- quality factor of “C” was given to the remaining targets sion detected in the Off position. This creates appar- which were often blended and more difficult to fit. A ent absorption lines in the processed position-switched quality factor of D was assigned to spectra with no CO spectrum. Since any emission components near these detections. absorption features are contaminated by this Off emis- CO in the OSC 7