21.02.2018

The co-evolution mystery deepened by a new ALMA observation

A schematic view of the fact that an ionized gas outflow (green) driven by the central supermassive black hole does not affect the star formation of its host galaxy. This situation may occur if the ionized gas is outflowing perpendicularly to the molecular gas.

-

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe an active galaxy with a strong ionized gas outflow from the galactic center, a team led by Dr. Yoshiki Toba of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan) has obtained a result making astronomers even more puzzled—the team clearly detected carbon monoxide (CO) gas that is associated with the galactic disk, yet they have also found that the CO gas which settles in the galaxy is not affected by the strong ionized gas outflow launched from the galactic center.

These observation results were published as Toba et al. “No sign of strong molecular gas outflow in an infrared-bright dust-obscured galaxy with strong ionized-gas outflow” in the Astrophysical Journal in December 2017.

Quelle: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan