ALMA at the UK National Astronomy Meeting

For those of you attending the UK National Astronomy Meeting, please come and visit our virtual stand, where you can meet our team and find out what they can do to help you with your ALMA astronomical research. Just click on our banner during the sessions to drop in to say hello and get answers to any ALMA-related questions you may have.

 

Science Highlight: ALMA 13 CO(J = 1–0) observations of molecular clouds within the giant HII region NGC 604 in M33

ALMA images of 13CO and continuum emission from NGC 6094 in M33.  Credit: Saul P. Phiri (University of Central Lancashire).

ALMA images of 13CO and continuum emission from NGC 6094 in M33. The red contours show the locations of molecular clouds identified in the analysis, and the white countours in the right panel show the location of the 13CO emission. Credit: Saul P. Phiri (University of Central Lancashire).

A group led by Saul P. Phiri used ALMA archival data to map 13CO and continuum emission from NGC 604, a giant HII region in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. Using a dendrogram analysis, they identified 15 molecular clouds at different evolutionary stages, with a range of sizes from 5 – 21 pc, linewidths of 0.3 – 3.0 km/s, and luminosity-derived masses of (0.4 – 80.5) x 103 solar masses. For the first time, they resolved the most massive molecular cloud into four smaller molecular clouds named L3, L4, L5, and L6, with L5 exhibiting two peaks. They find these molecular clouds to be near virial equilibrium when comparing the luminosity-derived mass and virial mass estimates. On the other hand, the linewidth - size relation for the clouds is offset from the corresponding relations for the Milky Way and for NGC 300, although this could be just an artefact of the dendrogram process. The virial parameter ranges from 0.2 to 1.1; values less than 1 indicate that not only are the clouds in a state of forming stars but photoionizing stars have been formed. Additional dendrogram analyses with higher resolution data will be necessary to explore these phenomena in more detail.

The full science paper has been published by MNRAS and is available from https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1251.

 

Postdoctoral research associate position at the UK ARC Node

The UK ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) Node at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics invites applications for a postdoctoral research associate position to work as a support astronomer for UK users of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). The ARC Node is funded by STFC to support the UK astronomical community to exploit the UK’s investment in ALMA and is a leading member of the European ALMA Regional Centre network led by the ESO. We are seeking an appointee who will spend 75% of their time as part of the ARC Node team supporting astronomers planning ALMA observations, acquiring and processing data as well as contributing to the continued development of ALMA. For the remaining 25% of their time, the appointee will undertake their own independent research program focused on ALMA science.

Full details and a link for applications can be found at https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=20439.