Seminar: Giant Molecular Clouds in Nearby Galaxies

Dr Annie Hughes 

Max Planck Institute

M51, a spiral galaxy, as viewed with a radio telescope. Provided by Dr Hughes.

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In this talk, I review physical properties the molecular gas in several nearby galaxies, focussing on new data from recent highresolution imaging surveys of CO emission in the Large Magellanic Cloud (MAGMA-LMC) and M51 (PAWS). I highlight several results that are hard to reconcile with the traditional view of giant molecular clouds as long-lived, quasi-equilibrium structures. In both the LMC and M51, we find that there is no correlation between the molecular gas and star formation rate surface densities, although a Kennicutt-Schmidt type relation is recovered on larger scales. In M51, dynamical effects within the galactic disk appear to influence the ability of the molecular gas to form stars.