Molecular Gas and Dust in IC342: Signs of Inhibited Star Formation

Session 73 - Spiral Galaxies.
Oral session, Thursday, June 11
Friars,

[73.06] Molecular Gas and Dust in IC342: Signs of Inhibited Star Formation

R. L. Hurt (IPAC/Caltech), J. L. Turner (UCLA), D. A. Levine (IPAC/Caltech)

We discuss the star formation properties of the nearby spiral galaxy IC342, contrasting gas abundances and star formation rates in the disk, stellar bar, and weakly bursting nucleus. To trace gas abundances we present a fully-sampled on-the-fly (OTF) map of the CO (1-0) emission made with the NRAO 12 meter telescope. The 15' x 15' map covers the bulk of the optical extent of the galaxy at an effective resolution of 60''. Dust/star formation tracers include newly-processed IRAS HIRES maps at 60 amp; 100 um and new ISOPHOT maps at 60 amp; 160 um. These maps are compared with 20 cm radio continuum (tracing star formation) and J band (tracing the base stellar disk) images. The resulting global picture of this galaxy reveals a region between the outer stellar disk and nuclear ``starburst'' which appears to have very low levels of star formation despite abundant quantities of molecular gas. This inhibited star formation may be the dynamical result of a stellar bar in this region.

Program listing for Thursday