Free-free and H42a emission from the dusty starburst within NGC 4945 as observed by ALMA

We present observations of the 85.69 GHz continuum emission and H42 alpha line emission from the central 30 arcsec within NGC 4945. Both sources of emission originate from nearly identical structures that can be modelled as exponential discs with scalelengths of ~2.1 arcsec (or ~40 pc). An analysis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2016-11, Vol.463 (1), p.252-252
Main Authors: Bendo, G J, Henkel, C, D'Cruze, M J, Dickinson, C, Fuller, G A, Karim, A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arrays
Astrophysics
Continuums
Disks
Emission
Emission analysis
Emissions
Mathematical models
Milky Way
Radio astronomy
Space telescopes
Spectral energy distribution
Star & galaxy formation
Symbols
Temperature effects
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Summary:We present observations of the 85.69 GHz continuum emission and H42 alpha line emission from the central 30 arcsec within NGC 4945. Both sources of emission originate from nearly identical structures that can be modelled as exponential discs with scalelengths of ~2.1 arcsec (or ~40 pc). An analysis of the spectral energy distribution based on combining these data with archival data imply that 84 plus or minus 10 per cent of the 85.69 GHz continuum emission originates from free-free emission. The electron temperature is 5400 plus or minus 600 K, which is comparable to what has been measured near the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. The star formation rate (SFR) based on the H42 alpha and 85.69 GHz free-free emission (and using a distance of 3.8 Mpc) is 4.35 plus or minus 0.25 M... yr super( -1). This is consistent with the SFR from the total infrared flux and with previous measurements based on recombination line emission, and it is within a factor of ~2 of SFRs derived from radio data. The Spitzer Space Telescope 24 mu m data and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer 22 mu m data yield SFRs ~10x lower than the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array measurements, most likely because the mid-infrared data are strongly affected by dust attenuation equivalent to A sub( V) = 150. These results indicate that SFRs based on mid-infrared emission may be highly inaccurate for dusty, compact circumnuclear starbursts. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966