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The center of the nearby galaxy NGC 253 hosts a population of more than a dozen super star clusters (SSCs) that are still in the process of forming. The majority of the star formation of the burst is concentrated in these SSCs, and the starburst is powering a multiphase outflow from the galaxy. In this work, we measure the 350 GHz dust continuum emission toward the center of NGC 253 at 47 mas (0.8 pc) resolution using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We report the detection of 350 GHz (dust) continuum emission in the outflow for the first time, associated with the prominent South-West streamer. In this feature, the dust emission has a width of ≈8 pc, is located at the outer edge of the CO emission, and corresponds to a molecular gas mass of ∼(8â€"17)Ă—106 M ⊙. In the starburst nucleus, we measure the resolved radial profiles, sizes, and molecular gas masses of the SSCs. Compared to previous work at the somewhat lower spatial resolution, the SSCs here break apart into smaller substructures with radii 0.4â€"0.7 pc. In projection, the SSCs, dust, and dense molecular gas appear to be arranged as a thin, almost linear, structure roughly 155 pc in length. The morphology and kinematics of this structure can be well explained as gas following x 2 orbits at the center of a barred potential. We constrain the morpho-kinematic arrangement of the SSCs themselves, finding that an elliptical, angular-momentum-conserving ring is a good description of both the morphology and kinematics of the SSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the formation of clusters of galaxies in numerical simulations of a QUMOND cosmogony with massive sterile neutrinos. Clusters formed in these exploratory simulations develop higher velocities than those found in ACDM simulations. The bulk motions of clusters attain ~1000 km s-1 by low redshift, comparable to observations whereas ACDM simulated clusters tend to fall short. Similarly, high pairwise velocities are common in cluster-cluster collisions like the Bullet Cluster. There is also a propensity for the most massive clusters to be larger in QUMOND and to appear earlier than in ACDM, potentially providing an explanation for "pink elephants" like El Gordo. However, it is not obvious that the cluster mass function can be recovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inner regions of barred galaxies contain substructures such as off-axis shocks, nuclear rings, and nuclear spirals. These substructures may affect star formation, and control the activity of a central black hole (BH) by determining the mass inflow rate. We investigate the formation and properties of such substructures using high-resolution, grid-based hydrodynamic simulations. The gaseous medium is assumed to be infinitesimally thin, isothermal, and non-self-gravitating. The stars and dark matter are represented by a static gravitational potential with four components: a stellar disk, a bulge, a central BH, and a bar. To investigate various galactic environments, we vary the gas sound speed, cs, as well as the mass of the central BH, MBH. Once the flow has reached a quasi-steady state, off-axis shocks tend to move closer to the bar major axis as cs increases. Nuclear rings shrink in size with increasing cs, but are independent of MBH, suggesting that the ring position is not determined by the Lindblad resonances. Rings in low-cs models are narrow since they are occupied largely by gas on x2-orbits and well decoupled from nuclear spirals, while they become broad because of large thermal perturbations in high-cs models. Nuclear spirals persist only when either cs is small or MBH is large; they would otherwise be destroyed completely by the ring material on eccentric orbits. The shape and strength of nuclear spirals depend sensitively on cs and MBH such that they are leading if both cs and MBH are small, weak trailing if cs is small and MBH is large, and strong trailing if both cs and MBH are large. While the mass inflow rate toward the nucleus is quite small in low-cs models because of the presence of a narrow nuclear ring, it becomes larger than 0.01 M⊙ yr-1 when cs is large, providing a potential explanation of nuclear activity in Seyfert galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present observations of N2H+ (J = 1 → 0), HCO+ (J = 1 → 0), and HCN (J = 1 → 0) toward the Serpens Main molecular cloud from the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy). We mapped 150 arcmin2 of Serpens Main with an angular resolution of ∼7″. The gas emission is concentrated in two subclusters (the NW and SE subclusters). The SE subcluster has more prominent filamentary structures and more complicated kinematics compared to the NW subcluster. The majority of gas in the two subclusters has subsonic to sonic velocity dispersions. We applied a dendrogram technique with N2H+(1-0) to study the gas structures; the SE subcluster has a higher degree of hierarchy than the NW subcluster. Combining the dendrogram and line fitting analyses reveals two distinct relations: a flat relation between nonthermal velocity dispersion and size, and a positive correlation between variation in velocity centroids and size. The two relations imply a characteristic depth of 0.15 pc for the cloud. Furthermore, we have identified six filaments in the SE subcluster. These filaments have lengths of ∼0.2 pc and widths of ∼0.03 pc, which is smaller than a characteristic width of 0.1 pc suggested by Herschel observations. The filaments can be classified into two types based on their properties. The first type, located in the northeast of the SE subcluster, has larger velocity gradients, smaller masses, and nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios. The other type, located in the southwest of the SE subcluster, has the opposite properties. Several YSOs are formed along two filaments which have supercritical mass per unit length ratios, while filaments with nearly critical mass-per-unit-length ratios are not associated with YSOs, suggesting that stars are formed on gravitationally unstable filaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present details of the CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey (CLASSy), while focusing on observations of Barnard 1. CLASSy is a CARMA Key Project that spectrally imaged N2H+, HCO+, and HCN (J = 1 → 0 transitions) across over 800 square arcminutes of the Perseus and Serpens Molecular Clouds. The observations have angular resolution near 7″ and spectral resolution near 0.16 km s–1. We imaged ∼150 square arcminutes of Barnard 1, focusing on the main core, and the B1 Ridge and clumps to its southwest. N2H+ shows the strongest emission, with morphology similar to cool dust in the region, while HCO+ and HCN trace several molecular outflows from a collection of protostars in the main core. We identify a range of kinematic complexity, with N2H+ velocity dispersions ranging from ∼0.05 to 0.50 km s–1 across the field. Simultaneous continuum mapping at 3 mm reveals six compact object detections, three of which are new detections. A new, non-binary dendrogram algorithm is used to analyze dense gas structures in the N2H+ position-position-velocity (PPV) cube. The projected sizes of dendrogram-identified structures range from about 0.01 to 0.34 pc. Size-linewidth relations using those structures show that non-thermal line-of-sight velocity dispersion varies weakly with projected size, while rms variation in the centroid velocity rises steeply with projected size. Comparing these relations, we propose that all dense gas structures in Barnard 1 have comparable depths into the sky, around 0.1-0.2 pc; this suggests that overdense, parsec-scale regions within molecular clouds are better described as flattened structures rather than spherical collections of gas. Science-ready PPV cubes for Barnard 1 molecular emission are available for download. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]