PAMS: The Perseus Arm Molecular Survey – I. Survey description and first results

Rigby, Andrew J, Thompson, Mark A, Eden, David J, Moore, Toby J T, Mutale, Mubela, Peretto, Nicolas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6893-602X, Plume, Rene, Urquhart, James S, Williams, Gwenllian M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5933-2147 and Currie, Malcolm J 2025. PAMS: The Perseus Arm Molecular Survey – I. Survey description and first results. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 538 (1) , 198–222. 10.1093/mnras/staf278

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Abstract

The external environments surrounding molecular clouds vary widely across galaxies such as the Milky Way, and statistical samples of clouds are required to understand them. We present the Perseus Arm Molecular Survey (PAMS), a James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) survey combining new and archival data of molecular-cloud complexes in the outer Perseus spiral arm in 12CO, 13CO, and C18O (J=3–2). With a survey area of ∼8 deg2, PAMS covers well-known complexes such as W3, W5, and NGC 7538 with two fields at ℓ ≈ 110○ and ℓ ≈ 135○. PAMS has an effective resolution of 17 arcsec, and rms sensitivity of Tmb = 0.7–1.0 K in 0.3 km s−1 channels. Here we present a first look at the data, and compare the PAMS regions in the Outer Galaxy with Inner Galaxy regions from the CO Heterodyne Inner Milky Way Plane Survey (CHIMPS). By comparing the various CO data with maps of H2 column density from Herschel, we calculate representative values for the CO-to-H2 column-density X-factors, which are $X_\mathrm{^{12}CO\, (3-2)}$ = 4.0 × 1020 and $X_\mathrm{^{13}CO\, (3-2)}$ = 4.0 × 1021 cm−2 (K km s−1)−1 with a factor of 1.5 uncertainty. We find that the emission profiles, size–linewidth, and mass–radius relationships of 13CO-traced structures are similar between the Inner and Outer Galaxy. Although PAMS sources are slightly more massive than their Inner Galaxy counterparts for a given size scale, the discrepancy can be accounted for by the Galactic gradient in gas-to-dust mass ratio, uncertainties in the X-factors, and selection biases. We have made the PAMS data publicly available, complementing other CO surveys targeting different regions of the Galaxy in different isotopologues and transitions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2025-02-20
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 March 2025
Date of Acceptance:	10 February 2025
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2025 10:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176622

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