High Velocity Compact Clouds in the Sagittarius C Region

Abstract

We report the detection of extremely broad emission toward two molecular clumps in the Galactic central molecular zone. We have mapped the Sagittarius C complex (-0.61 < l < -0.27, -0.29 < b < 0.04) in the HCN J = 4--3, 13CO J = 3--2, and H13CN J = 1--0 lines with the ASTE 10 m and NRO 45 m telescopes, detecting bright emission with 80--120\ km\,s-1 velocity width (in full-width at zero intensity) toward CO-0.30-0.07 and CO-0.40-0.22, which are high velocity compact clouds (HVCCs) identified with our previous CO J = 3--2 survey. Our data reveal an interesting internal structure of CO-0.30-0.07 comprising a pair of high velocity lobes. The spatial-velocity structure of CO-0.40-0.22 can be also understood as multiple velocity component, or a velocity gradient across the cloud. They are both located on the rims of two molecular shells of about 10 pc in radius. Kinetic energies of CO-0.30-0.07 and CO-0.40-0.22 are (0.8--2)×1049 erg and (1--4)×1049 erg, respectively. We propose several interpretations of their broad emission: collision between clouds associated with the shells, bipolar outflow, expansion driven by supernovae (SNe), and rotation around a dark massive object. There scenarios cannot be discriminated because of the insufficient angular resolution of our data, though the absence of visible energy sources associated with the HVCCs seems to favor the cloud--cloud collision scenario. Kinetic energies of the two molecular shells are 1×1051 erg and 0.7×1051 erg, which can be furnished by multiple SN or hypernova explosions in 2×105 yr. These shells are candidates of molecular superbubbles created after past active star formation.

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