Molecular Cloud Properties in Low-Metallicity Star Forming Regions

HUGO P. SALDAÑO; MÓNICA RUBIO; KATHERIN JAMESON; ALBERTO D. BOLATTO

Malargüe, Mendoza

Congreso; 60a Reunión Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Astronomía; 2017

Asociación Argentina de Astronomía

We present the study of a region of the Magellanic Bridge through CO(1 - 0) and another one belonging to the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) through CO(2 - 1) emission. The observations were carried outwith ALMA. We identified more than 80 CO clouds using the software cprops. We have found that parameters of these clouds follow a similar trend of the relationships of Solomon et al. (1987) for Galactic clouds, extending such relations to very small objects. While they do not satisfy the Larson Law which is fulfilled by clouds with similar column densities, our clouds follow a generalisation of Larson?s law and the energy balance relationship. Also, we estimate the CO-to-H2 conversion factor, assuming gravitationally bounded molecular clouds. This factor is commonly used to estimate the H2 total mass, and we find that the analysed regions have values larger than the canonical conversion factor of our Galaxy (4.3 M (K km s^-1 pc^-2 )^-1 ) by a factor of 3. However, these values are probably underestimated because the CO would not totally match the H2 core.