Mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies with Herschel/SPIRE

S. A. Eales , M. W. L. Smith , C. D. Wilson , G. J. Bendo , L. Cortese , M. Pohlen , A. Boselli (1) , H. L. Gomez , R. Auld , M. Baes , M. J. Barlow , J. J. Bock , M. Bradford , V. Buat (1) , N. Castro-Rodríguez , P. Chanial , S. Charlot (2) , L. Ciesla (1) , D. L. Clements , A. Cooray , D. Cormier , J. I. Davies , E. Dwek , D. Elbaz , M. Galametz , F. Galliano , W. K. Gear , J. Glenn , M. Griffin , S. Hony , K. G. Isaak , L. R. Levenson , N. Lu , S. Madden , B. O'Halloran , K. Okumura , S. Oliver , M. J. Page , P. Panuzzo , A. Papageorgiou , T. J. Parkin , I. Pérez-Fournon , N. Rangwala , E. E. Rigby , H. Roussel (2) , A. Rykala , N. Sacchi , M. Sauvage , B. Schulz , M. R. P. Schirm , L. Spinoglio , S. Srinivasan (2) , J. A. Stevens , M. Symeonidis , M. Trichas , M. Vaccari , L. Vigroux (2) , H. Wozniak (3) , G. S. Wright , W. W. Zeilinger

1 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
2 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
3 ObAS - Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg

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.

Mots clés: galaxies: ISM; galaxies: spiral; dust; extinction; ISM: abundances; Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

S. A. Eales, M. W. L. Smith, C. D. Wilson, G. J. Bendo, L. Cortese, et al.. Mapping the interstellar medium in galaxies with Herschel/SPIRE. Astronomy and Astrophysics - A&A, 2010, 518, ⟨10.1051/0004-6361/201014536⟩. ⟨hal-03646121⟩