The Arp 220 merger on kpc scales

S. König*, M. García-Marín, A. Eckart, D. Downes, J. Scharwächter

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    For the first time, we study the eastern nucleus in greater detail and search for the more extended emission in the molecular gas in different CO line transitions of the famous ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) Arp 220. Furthermore, we present a model of the merger in Arp 220 on large scales with the help of the CO data and an optical and near-infrared composite Hubble Space Telescope image of the prototypical ULIRG. Using the Plateau de Bure interferometer (PdBI), we obtained CO(2-1) and (1-0) data at wavelengths of 1 and 3mm in 1994, 1996, 1997, and 2006 at different beam sizes and spatial resolutions. The simulations of the merger in Arp 220 were performed with the Identikit modeling tool. The model parameters that describe the galaxy merger best give a mass ratio of 1:2 and result in a merger of 6 × 10 8yr. The low-resolution CO(1-0) PdBI observations suggest that there are indications for emission 10″ toward the south, as well as to the north and to the west of the two nuclei.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number58
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume754
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 20 Jul 2012

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