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E. Rosolowsky, G. Engargiola, R. Plambeck, L. Blitz (UC Berkeley)
We present the results of the complete CO 12CO(1\to 0) survey of the molecular gas in M33. These observations represent the first survey of all of the GMCs in a spiral galaxy; CO surveys of the Milky Way are too severely blended in some regions to separate the GMCs from one another. These observations show that individual molecular clouds share many properties with those found in the Milky Way although the most massive GMC in M33 has a mass of only 7\times 105 M\odot and is not associated with an {\sc Hii} region. Moreover, the specific angular momentum of the GMCs is more than an order of magnitude smaller than expected for basic formation scenarios. The observational campaign consists of two parts: 1) a complete survey of the star forming disk which represents a complete census of GMCs down to the Taurus cloud mass at low spatial resolution and high surface brightness sensitivity and 2) high resolution follow-up observations which spatially resolve the molecular clouds providing information on rotation properties, virial masses, and morphology. From the latter, we estimate the angular momentum imparted through galactic shear by Jeans collapse, the Toomre instability and the Parker instability, all of which impart much more angular momentum to the clouds than is observed. We propose the magnetic fields that thread the molecular clouds and connect to the diffuse interstellar medium brake the spin-up of the progenitor gas, suggesting that the formation of GMCs is a magnetohydrodynamic process.