Refined molecular gas mass and star-formation efficiency in NGC3627

Abstract

We present a 13CO (J= 1-0) mapping observation of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC3627, covering almost all the stellar disc, with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. We found that the 13CO (J= 1-0) morphology of NGC3627 is similar to the 12CO (J= 1-0) map and the 12CO (J= 1-0)/13CO (J= 1-0) intensity ratio is 10.7 ± 0.4 on average. We also found that the ratio varies position-to-position in the galaxy and decreases with the galactocentric distance. The ratio is especially high, ∼20, in the bar and this result suggests that the molecular gas mass calculated from the 12CO (J= 1-0) intensity with constant conversion factor is overestimated in the bar. As a result, the star-formation efficiency (SFE) in the bar, which is derived from 13CO (J= 1-0) intensity, is similar to that in the other regions except for the two bar ends and the centre. We found that the SFE is higher in the bar ends than in the other regions. We discuss plausible reasons for the enhanced SFE in the bar: the kinetic temperature of the molecular gas, the spatial gap between the molecular gas peak and star formation and gravitational instability. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.