Submitted to Ap J L Gas Density, Stability and Starbursts Near the Inner Lindblad Resonance of the Milky Way

A key project of the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory reported by Martin et al. (2004) is the mapping of CO J = 4 → 3 and J = 7 → 6 emission from the inner Milky Way, allowing determination of gas density and temperature. Galactic center gas that Binney et al. (1991) identify...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Antony A. Stark, Christopher L. Martin, Wilfred M. Walsh, Kecheng Xiao, Adair P. Lane, Christopher K. Walker
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2004
Subjects:
Subject headings
Galaxy
structure—ISM
clouds—ISM
molecules—galaxies
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Milky Way
Antarc*
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.337.5674
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0405330v1.pdf
Description
Summary:A key project of the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory reported by Martin et al. (2004) is the mapping of CO J = 4 → 3 and J = 7 → 6 emission from the inner Milky Way, allowing determination of gas density and temperature. Galactic center gas that Binney et al. (1991) identify as being on x2 orbits has a density near 10 3.5 cm −3, which renders it only marginally stable against gravitational coagulation into a few Giant Molecular Clouds, as discussed by Elmegreen (1994). This suggests a relaxation oscillator mechanism for starbursts in the Milky Way, where inflowing gas accumulates in a ring at 150 pc radius for approximately 20 million years, until the critical density is reached, and the resulting instability leads to the sudden formation of giant clouds and the deposition of 4 × 10 7 M ⊙ of gas onto the Galactic center.

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