Mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies with Herschel/SPIRE
Elbaz, D.; Pérez-Fournon, I.; Bock, J. J.; Clements, D. L.; Ciesla, L.; Okumura, K.; Buat, V.; Dwek, E.; Roussel, H.; Cooray, A.; Isaak, K. G.; Page, M. J.; Symeonidis, M.; Vaccari, M.; Galliano, F.; Cormier, D.; Hony, S.; Sauvage, M.; Galametz, M.; Wilson, C. D.; Auld, R.; Baes, M.; Bradford, M.; Panuzzo, P.; Bendo, G. J.; Boselli, A.; Cortese, L.; Castro-Rodríguez, N.; Chanial, P.; Glenn, J.; Griffin, M.; Lu, N.; Madden, S.; O'Halloran, B.; Papageorgiou, A.; Pohlen, M.; Schulz, B.; Stevens, J. A.; Trichas, M.; Vigroux, L.; Spinoglio, L.; Smith, M. W. L.; Eales, S. A.; Gomez, H. L.; Gear, W. K.; Barlow, M. J.; Charlot, S.; Rangwala, N.; Oliver, S.; Rigby, E. E.; Wright, G. S.; Zeilinger, W. W.; Parkin, T. J.; Srinivasan, S.; Davies, J. I.; Schirm, M. R. P.; Rykala, A.; Sacchi, N.; Levenson, L. R.; Wozniak, H.
United Kingdom, Canada, France, Belgium, United States, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Austria
Abstract
The standard method of mapping the interstellar medium in a galaxy, by observing the molecular gas in the CO 1-0 line and the atomic gas in the 21-cm line, is largely limited with current telescopes to galaxies in the nearby universe. In this letter, we use SPIRE observations of the galaxies M 99 and M 100 to explore the alternative approach of mapping the interstellar medium using the continuum emission from the dust. We have compared the methods by measuring the relationship between the star-formation rate and the surface density of gas in the galaxies using both methods. We find the two methods give relationships with a similar dispersion, confirming that observing the continuum emission from the dust is a promising method of mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies.
Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.