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    The SEDIGISM survey: The influence of spiral arms on the molecular gas distribution of the inner Milky Way
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2022) Colombo, D.; Duarte-Cabral, A.; Pettitt, A.R.; Urquhart, J. S.; Wyrowski, F.; Csengeri, T.; Neralwar, K.R.; Schuller, F.; Menten, K.M.; Anderson, L.; Barnes, P.; Beuther, H.; Bronfman, L.; Eden, D.; Ginsburg, A.; Henning, T.; König, C.; Lee, M.-Y.; Mattern, M.; Medina, S.; Ragan, S.E.; Rigby, A. J.; Sánchez-Monge, Á.; Traficante, A.; Yang, A. Y.; Wienen, M.
    The morphology of the Milky Way is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on uncertainties surrounding the structure of the Galaxy, in this paper, we study the imprint of spiral arms on the distribution and properties of its molecular gas. To do so, we take full advantage of the SEDIGISM (Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic Interstellar Medium) survey that observed a large area of the inner Galaxy in the 13CO (2-1) line at an angular resolution of 28′′. We analyse the influences of the spiral arms by considering the features of the molecular gas emission as a whole across the longitude-velocity map built from the full survey. Additionally, we examine the properties of the molecular clouds in the spiral arms compared to the properties of their counterparts in the inter-arm regions. Through flux and luminosity probability distribution functions, we find that the molecular gas emission associated with the spiral arms does not differ significantly from the emission between the arms. On average, spiral arms show masses per unit length of ~105-106 M⊙ kpc-1. This is similar to values inferred from data sets in which emission distributions were segmented into molecular clouds. By examining the cloud distribution across the Galactic plane, we infer that the molecular mass in the spiral arms is a factor of 1.5 higher than that of the inter-arm medium, similar to what is found for other spiral galaxies in the local Universe. We observe that only the distributions of cloud mass surface densities and aspect ratio in the spiral arms show significant differences compared to those of the inter-arm medium; other observed differences appear instead to be driven by a distance bias. By comparing our results with simulations and observations of nearby galaxies, we conclude that the measured quantities would classify the Milky Way as a flocculent spiral galaxy, rather than as a grand-design one.
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    The SEDIGISM survey: A search for molecular outflows
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2022) Yang, A.Y.; Urquhart, J.S.; Wyrowski, F.; Thompson, M.A.; König, C.; Colombo, D.; Menten, K.M.; Duarte-Cabral, A.; Schuller, F.; Csengeri, T.; Eden, D.; Barnes, P.; Traficante, A.; Bronfman, L.; Sanchez-Monge, A.; Ginsburg, A.; Cesaroni, R.; Lee, M.-Y.; Beuther, H.; Medina, S.-N.X.; Mazumdar, P.; Henning, T.
    Context. The formation processes of massive stars are still unclear, but a picture is emerging involving accretion disks and molecular outflows in what appears to be a scaled-up version of low-mass star formation. A census of outflow activity toward high-mass star-forming clumps in various evolutionary stages has the potential to shed light on high-mass star formation. Aims. We conducted an outflow survey toward ATLASGAL (APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy) clumps using SEDIGISM (structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic InterStellar Medium) data and aimed to obtain a large sample of clumps exhibiting outflow activity in different evolutionary stages. Methods. We identify the high-velocity wings of the 13CO lines, which indicate outflow activity, toward ATLASGAL clumps by (1) extracting the simultaneously observed 13CO (2-1) and C18O (2-1) spectra from SEDIGISM, and (2) subtracting Gaussian fits to the scaled C18O (core emission) from the 13CO line after considering opacity broadening. Results. We detected high-velocity gas toward 1192 clumps out of a total sample of 2052, corresponding to an overall detection rate of 58%. Outflow activity has been detected in the earliest (apparently) quiescent clumps (i.e., 70 μm weak) to the most evolved H » II region stages (i.e., 8 μm bright with tracers of massive star formation). The detection rate increases as a function of evolution (quiescent = 51%, protostellar = 47%, YSO = 57%, UC H » II regions = 76%). Conclusions. Our sample is the largest outflow sample identified so far. The high detection rate from this large sample is consistent with the results of similar studies reported in the literature and supports the scenario that outflows are a ubiquitous feature of high-mass star formation. The lower detection rate in early evolutionary stages may be due to the fact that outflows in the early stages are weak and difficult to detect. We obtain a statistically significant sample of outflow clumps for every evolutionary stage, especially for outflow clumps in the earliest stage (i.e., 70 μm dark). The detections of outflows in the 70 μm dark clumps suggest that the absence of 70 μm emission is not a robust indicator of starless and/or pre-stellar cores.
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    Probing the structure of a massive filament: ArTéMiS 350 and 450 μm mapping of the integral-shaped filament in Orion A
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2021) Schuller, F.; André, Ph.; Shimajiri, Y.; Zavagno, A.; Peretto, N.; Arzoumanian, D.; Csengeri, T.; Könyves, V.; Palmeirim, P.; Pezzuto, S.; Rigby, A.; Roussel, H.; Ajeddig, H.; Dumaye, L.; P. Gallais, P.; Le Pennec, J.; Martignac, J.; Mattern, M.; Revéret, V.; Rodriguez, L.; Talvard, M.
    Context. The Orion molecular cloud is the closest region of high-mass star formation. It is an ideal target for investigating the detailed structure of massive star-forming filaments at high resolution and the relevance of the filament paradigm for the earliest stages of intermediate- to high-mass star formation. Aims. Within the Orion A molecular cloud, the integral-shaped filament (ISF) is a prominent, degree-long structure of dense gas and dust with clear signs of recent and ongoing high-mass star formation. Our aim is to characterise the structure of this massive filament at moderately high angular resolution (8′′ or ~0.016 pc) in order to measure the intrinsic width of the main filament, down to scales well below 0.1 pc, which has been identified as the characteristic width of filaments. Methods. We used the ArTéMiS bolometer camera at APEX to map a ~0.6 × 0.2 deg2 region covering OMC-1, OMC-2, and OMC-3 at 350 and 450 μm. We combined these data with Herschel-SPIRE maps to recover extended emission. The combined Herschel-ArTéMiS maps provide details on the distribution of dense cold material, with a high spatial dynamic range, from our 8′′ resolution up to the transverse angular size of the map, ~10-15′. By combining Herschel and ArTéMiS data at 160, 250, 350, and 450 μm, we constructed high-resolution temperature and H2 column density maps. We extracted radial intensity profiles from the column density map in several representative portions of the ISF, which we fitted with Gaussian and Plummer models to derive their intrinsic widths. We also compared the distribution of material traced by ArTéMiS with that seen in the higher-density tracer N2H+(1-0) that was recently observed with the ALMA interferometer. Results. All the radial profiles that we extracted show a clear deviation from a Gaussian, with evidence for an inner plateau that had not previously been seen clearly using Herschel-only data. We measure intrinsic half-power widths in the range 0.06-0.11 pc. This is significantly larger than the Gaussian widths measured for fibres seen in N2H+, which probably only traces the dense innermost regions of the large-scale filament. These half-power widths are within a factor of two of the value of ~0.1 pc found for a large sample of nearby filaments in various low-mass star-forming regions, which tends to indicate that the physical conditions governing the fragmentation of pre-stellar cores within transcritical or supercritical filaments are the same over a large range of masses per unit length. © F. Schuller et al. 2021.