The JCMT Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey - III. Comparisons of cold dust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, molecular gas and atomic gas in NGC 2403

Bendo, G. J.; Wilson, C. D.; Warren, B. E.; Brinks, E.; Butner, H. M.; Chanial, P.; Clements, D. L.; Courteau, S.; Irwin, J.; Israel, F. P.; Knapen, J. H.; Leech, J.; Matthews, H. E.; Mühle, S.; Petitpas, G.; Serjeant, S.; Tan, B. K.; Tilanus, R. P. J.; Usero, A.; Vaccari, M.; van der Werf, P.; Vlahakis, C.; Wiegert, T. and Zhu, M. (2010). The JCMT Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey - III. Comparisons of cold dust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, molecular gas and atomic gas in NGC 2403. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 402(3) pp. 1409–1425.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.16043.x

Abstract

We used Spitzer Space Telescope 3.6, 8.0, 70 and 160 μm data, James Clerk Maxwell Telescope HARP-B CO J= (3–2) data, National Radio Astronomy Observatory 12 m telescope CO J= (1–0) data and Very Large Array H i data to investigate the relations among polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), cold (∼20 K) dust, molecular gas and atomic gas within NGC 2403, an SABcd galaxy at a distance of 3.13 Mpc. The dust surface density is mainly a function of the total (atomic and molecular) gas surface density and galactocentric radius. The gas-to-dust ratio monotonically increases with radius, varying from ∼100 in the nucleus to ∼400 at 5.5 kpc. The slope of the gas-to-dust ratio is close to that of the oxygen abundance, suggesting that metallicity strongly affects the gas-to-dust ratio within this galaxy. The exponential scale length of the radial profile for the CO J= (3–2) emission is statistically identical to the scale length for the stellar continuum-subtracted 8 μm (PAH 8 μm) emission. However, CO J= (3–2) and PAH 8 μm surface brightnesses appear uncorrelated when examining sub-kpc-sized regions.

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