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Despite recent progress, the question of what regulates the star formation efficiency in galaxies remains one of the most debated problems in astrophysics. According to the dominant picture, star formation (SF) is regulated by turbulence and feedback, and the SFE is 1-2% per local free-fall time. In an alternate scenario, the SF rate in galactic disks is linearly proportional to the mass of dense gas above a critical density threshold. We aim to discriminate between these two pictures thanks to high-resolution observations tracing dense gas and young stellar objects (YSOs) for a comprehensive sample of 49 nearby massive SF complexes out to d < 3 kpc in the Galactic disk. We use data from CAFFEINE, a 350/450 $\mu$m survey with APEX/ArT\'eMiS of the densest portions of all southern molecular clouds, in combination with Herschel data to produce column density maps at 8" resolution. Our maps are free of saturation and resolve the structure of dense gas and the typical 0.1 pc width of molecular filaments at 3 kpc, which is impossible with Herschel data alone. Coupled with SFR estimates derived from Spitzer observations of the YSO content of the same clouds, this allows us to study the dependence of the SFE with density in the CAFFEINE clouds. We also combine our findings with existing SFE measurements in nearby clouds to extend our analysis down to lower column densities. Our results suggest that the SFE does not increase with density above the critical threshold and support a scenario in which the SFE in dense gas is approximately constant. However, the SFE measurements traced by Class I YSOs in nearby clouds are more inconclusive, since they are consistent with both the presence of a density threshold and a dependence on density above the threshold. Overall, we suggest that the SFE in dense gas is primarily governed by the physics of filament fragmentation into protostellar cores., Comment: In press; accepted: 18/05/2024

We demonstrate the coherent optical control of magnetization precession in a thin Ni film by a second excitation pulse which amplifies or attenuates the precession induced by a first pulse depending on the fluences of the pump-pulses and the pump-pump delay. This control goes beyond the conventional strategy, where the same mechanism drives the precession in or out-of phase. We balance the magneto-acoustic mechanism driven by quasi-static strain and the shape-anisotropy change triggered by laser-induced demagnetization. These mechanisms tilt the transient effective magnetic field in opposite directions in case of negative magneto-elastic coupling ($b_1<0$). While the strain response is linear in the fluence, demagnetization is nonlinear near the Curie temperature, enabling fluence-based control scenarios.

Antiferromagnetic materials have been proposed as new types of narrowband THz spintronic devices owing to their ultrafast spin dynamics. Manipulating coherently their spin dynamics, however, remains a key challenge that is envisioned to be accomplished by spin-orbit torques or direct optical excitations. Here, we demonstrate the combined generation of broadband THz (incoherent) magnons and narrowband (coherent) magnons at 1 THz in low damping thin films of NiO/Pt. We evidence, experimentally and through modelling, two excitation processes of magnetization dynamics in NiO, an off-resonant instantaneous optical spin torque and a strain-wave-induced THz torque induced by ultrafast Pt excitation. Both phenomena lead to the emission of a THz signal through the inverse spin Hall effect in the adjacent heavy metal layer. We unravel the characteristic timescales of the two excitation processes found to be < 50 fs and > 300 fs, respectively, and thus open new routes towards the development of fast opto-spintronic devices based on antiferromagnetic materials.

The Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic InterStellar Medium (SEDIGISM) survey has produced high (spatial and spectral) resolution $^{13}$CO (2-1) maps of the Milky Way. It has allowed us to investigate the molecular interstellar medium in the inner Galaxy at an unprecedented level of detail and characterise it into molecular clouds. In a previous paper, we have classified the SEDIGISM clouds into four morphologies. However, how the properties of the clouds vary for these four morphologies is not well understood. Here, we use the morphological classification of SEDIGISM clouds to find connections between the cloud morphologies, their integrated properties, and their location on scaling relation diagrams. We observe that ring-like clouds show the most peculiar properties, having, on average, higher masses, sizes, aspect ratios and velocity dispersions compared to other morphologies. We speculate that this is related to the physical mechanisms that regulate their formation and evolution, for example, turbulence from stellar feedback can often results in the creation of bubble-like structures. We also see a trend of morphology with virial parameter whereby ring-like, elongated, clumpy and concentrated clouds have virial parameters in a decreasing order. Our findings provide a foundation for a better understanding of the molecular cloud behaviour based on their measurable properties., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 28 pages (17 of Appendices), 32 figures, 6 tables

We present one of the very first extensive classifications of a large sample of molecular clouds based on their morphology. This is achieved using a recently published catalogue of 10663 clouds obtained from the first data release of the SEDIGISM survey. The clouds are classified into four different morphologies by visual inspection and using an automated algorithm -- J plots. The visual inspection also serves as a test for the J plots algorithm, as this is the first time it has been used on molecular gas. Generally, it has been found that the structure of molecular clouds is highly filamentary and our observations indeed verify that most of our molecular clouds are elongated structures. Based on our visual classification of the 10663 SEDIGISM clouds, 15% are ring-like, 57% are elongated, 15% are concentrated and 10% are clumpy clouds. The remaining clouds do not belong to any of these morphology classes and are termed unclassified. We compare the SEDIGISM molecular clouds with structures identified through other surveys, i.e. ATLASGAL elongated structures and the bubbles from Milky Way Project (MWP). We find that many of the ATLASGAL and MWP structures are velocity coherent. ATLASGAL elongated structures overlap with ~ 21% of the SEDIGISM elongated structures (elongated and clumpy clouds) and MWP bubbles overlap with ~ 25% of the SEDIGISM ring-like clouds. We also analyse the star-formation associated with different cloud morphologies using two different techniques. The first technique examines star formation efficiency (SFE) and the dense gas fraction (DGF), based on SEDIGISM clouds and ATLASGAL clumps data. The second technique uses the high-mass star formation (HMSF) threshold for molecular clouds. The results indicate that clouds with ring-like and clumpy morphologies show a higher degree of star formation., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 40 pages (26 of Appendices), 55 figures, 13 tables. The updated SEDIGISM cloud catalogue, containing cloud morphology, will be available as part of the SEDIGISM database

Filaments are a ubiquitous morphological feature of the molecular interstellar medium and are identified as sites of star formation. In recent years, more than 100 large-scale filaments (with a length $>10$\,pc) have been observed in the inner Milky Way. As they appear linked to Galactic dynamics, studying those structures represents an opportunity to link kiloparsec-scale phenomena to the physics of star formation, which operates on much smaller scales. In this letter, we use newly acquired Outer Galaxy High Resolution Survey (OGHReS) $^{12}$CO(2-1) data to demonstrate that a significant number of large-scale filaments are present in the outer Galaxy as well. The 37 filaments identified appear tightly associated with inter-arm regions. In addition, their masses and linear masses are, on average, one order of magnitude lower than similar-sized molecular filaments located in the inner Galaxy, showing that Milky Way dynamics is able to create very elongated features in spite of the lower gas supply in the Galactic outskirts., Comment: 5 pages (+ appendices, 9 pages), 8 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in A&A Letters

We report the discovery of a velocity coherent, kpc-scale molecular structure towards the Galactic center region with an angular extent of 30deg and an aspect ratio of 60:1. The kinematic distance of the CO structure ranges between 4.4 to 6.5 kpc. Analysis of the velocity data and comparison with the existing spiral arm models support that a major portion of this structure is either a sub-branch of the Norma arm or an inter-arm giant molecular filament, likely to be a kpc-scale feather (or spur) of the Milky Way, similar to those observed in nearby spiral galaxies. The filamentary cloud is at least 2.0 kpc in extent, considering the uncertainties in the kinematic distances, and it could be as long as 4 kpc. The vertical distribution of this highly elongated structure reveals a pattern similar to that of a sinusoidal wave. The exact mechanisms responsible for the origin of such a kpc-scale filament and its wavy morphology remains unclear. The distinct wave-like shape and its peculiar orientation makes this cloud, named as the Gangotri wave, one of the largest and most intriguing structures identified in the Milky Way., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

The morphology of the Milky Way is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on uncertainties surrounding the structure of the Galaxy, in this paper, we study the imprint of spiral arms on the distribution and properties of its molecular gas. To do so, we take full advantage of the SEDIGISM survey that observed a large area of the inner Galaxy in the $^{13}$CO(2-1) line at an angular resolution of 28". We analyse the influences of the spiral arms by considering the features of the molecular gas emission as a whole across the longitude-velocity map built from the full survey. Additionally, we examine the properties of the molecular clouds in the spiral arms compared to the properties of their counterparts in the inter-arm regions. Through flux and luminosity probability distribution functions, we find that the molecular gas emission associated with the spiral arms does not differ significantly from the emission between the arms. On average, spiral arms show masses per unit length of $\sim10^5-10^6$ M$_{\odot} $kpc$^{-1}$. This is similar to values inferred from data sets in which emission distributions were segmented into molecular clouds. By examining the cloud distribution across the Galactic plane, we infer that the molecular mass in the spiral arms is a factor of 1.5 higher than that of the inter-arm medium, similar to what is found for other spiral galaxies in the local Universe. We observe that only the distributions of cloud mass surface densities and aspect ratio in the spiral arms show significant differences compared to those of the inter-arm medium; other observed differences appear instead to be driven by a distance bias. By comparing our results with simulations and observations of nearby galaxies, we conclude that the measured quantities would classify the Milky Way as a flocculent spiral galaxy, rather than as a grand-design one., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 38 pages (17 of Appendices), 26 figures, 7 tables. The updated SEDIGISM cloud catalogue, containing spiral arm association information, will be available as part of the SEDIGISM database ( https://sedigism.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/index.html )

(abridged) Within the Orion A molecular cloud, the integral-shaped filament (ISF) is a prominent, degree-long structure of dense gas and dust, with clear signs of recent and on-going high-mass star formation. We used the ArTeMiS bolometer camera at APEX to map a 0.6x0.2 deg^2 region covering OMC-1, OMC-2, OMC-3 at 350 and 450 micron. We combined these data with Herschel-SPIRE maps to recover extended emission. The combined Herschel-ArTeMiS maps provide details on the distribution of dense, cold material, with a high spatial dynamic range, from our 8'' resolution (0.016 pc) up to the size of the map ~10-15 deg. By combining Herschel and ArTeMiS data at 160, 250, 350 and 450 micron, we constructed high-resolution temperature and H2 column density maps. We extracted radial profiles from the column density map in several, representative portions of the ISF, that we fitted with Gaussian and Plummer models to derive their intrinsic widths. We also compared the distribution of material traced by ArTeMiS with that seen in the higher density tracer N2H+(1-0) recently observed with the ALMA interferometer. All the radial profiles that we extracted show clear deviation from a Gaussian, with evidence for an inner plateau, previously not seen using Herschel-only data. We measure intrinsic half-power widths in the range 0.06 to 0.11 pc. This is significantly larger than the Gaussian widths measured for fibers seen in N2H+, which probably traces only the dense innermost regions of the large-scale filament. These half-power widths are within a factor of two of the value of 0.1 pc found for a large sample of nearby filaments in various low-mass star-forming regions, which tends to indicate that the physical conditions governing the fragmentation of prestellar cores within transcritical or supercritical filaments are the same over a large range of masses per unit length., Comment: 17 pages, accepted for publication in A&A. Revised version after language editing

The SEDIGISM (Structure, Excitation and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic Interstellar Medium) survey used the APEX telescope to map 84 deg^2 of the Galactic plane between l = -60 deg and l = +31 deg in several molecular transitions, including 13CO(2-1) and C18O(2-1), thus probing the moderately dense (~10^3 cm^-3) component of the interstellar medium. With an angular resolution of 30'' and a typical 1-sigma sensitivity of 0.8-1.0 K at 0.25 km/s velocity resolution, it gives access to a wide range of structures, from individual star-forming clumps to giant molecular clouds and complexes. The coverage includes a good fraction of the first and fourth Galactic quadrants, allowing us to constrain the large scale distribution of cold molecular gas in the inner Galaxy. In this paper we provide an updated overview of the full survey and the data reduction procedures used. We also assess the quality of these data and describe the data products that are being made publicly available as part of this first data release (DR1). We present integrated maps and position-velocity maps of the molecular gas and use these to investigate the correlation between the molecular gas and the large scale structural features of the Milky Way such as the spiral arms, Galactic bar and Galactic centre. We find that approximately 60 per cent of the molecular gas is associated with the spiral arms and these appear as strong intensity peaks in the derived Galactocentric distribution. We also find strong peaks in intensity at specific longitudes that correspond to the Galactic centre and well known star forming complexes, revealing that the 13CO emission is concentrated in a small number of complexes rather than evenly distributed along spiral arms., Comment: MNRAS, in press

We use the 13CO(2-1) emission from the SEDIGISM high-resolution spectral-line survey of the inner Galaxy, to extract the molecular cloud population with a large dynamic range in spatial scales, using the SCIMES algorithm. This work compiles a cloud catalogue with a total of 10663 molecular clouds, 10300 of which we were able to assign distances and compute physical properties. We study some of the global properties of clouds using a science sample, consisting of 6664 well resolved sources and for which the distance estimates are reliable. In particular, we compare the scaling relations retrieved from SEDIGISM to those of other surveys, and we explore the properties of clouds with and without high-mass star formation. Our results suggest that there is no single global property of a cloud that determines its ability to form massive stars, although we find combined trends of increasing mass, size, surface density and velocity dispersion for the sub-sample of clouds with ongoing high-mass star formation. We then isolate the most extreme clouds in the SEDIGISM sample (i.e. clouds in the tails of the distributions) to look at their overall Galactic distribution, in search for hints of environmental effects. We find that, for most properties, the Galactic distribution of the most extreme clouds is only marginally different to that of the global cloud population. The Galactic distribution of the largest clouds, the turbulent clouds and the high-mass star-forming clouds are those that deviate most significantly from the global cloud population. We also find that the least dynamically active clouds (with low velocity dispersion or low virial parameter) are situated further afield, mostly in the least populated areas. However, we suspect that part of these trends may be affected by some observational biases, and thus require further follow up work in order to be confirmed., Comment: 25 pages (+ appendices, 15 pages), 26 figures, MNRAS

By combining two surveys covering a large fraction of the molecular material in the Galactic disk we investigate the role the spiral arms play in the star formation process. We have matched clumps identified by ATLASGAL with their parental GMCs as identified by SEDIGISM, and use these giant molecular cloud (GMC) masses, the bolometric luminosities, and integrated clump masses obtained in a concurrent paper to estimate the dense gas fractions (DGF$_{\rm gmc}=\sum M_{\rm clump}/M_{\rm gmc}$) and the instantaneous star forming efficiencies (i.e., SFE$_{\rm gmc} = \sum L_{\rm clump}/M_{\rm gmc}$). We find that the molecular material associated with ATLASGAL clumps is concentrated in the spiral arms ($\sim$60% found within $\pm$10 km s$^{-1}$ of an arm). We have searched for variations in the values of these physical parameters with respect to their proximity to the spiral arms, but find no evidence for any enhancement that might be attributable to the spiral arms. The combined results from a number of similar studies based on different surveys indicate that, while spiral-arm location plays a role in cloud formation and HI to H$_2$ conversion, the subsequent star formation processes appear to depend more on local environment effects. This leads us to conclude that the enhanced star formation activity seen towards the spiral arms is the result of source crowding rather than the consequence of a any physical process., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures. Full list of affiliations can be found at the end of the paper

Analysing the kinematics of filamentary molecular clouds is a crucial step towards understanding their role in the star formation process. Therefore, we study the kinematics of 283 filament candidates in the inner Galaxy, that were previously identified in the ATLASGAL dust continuum data. The $^{13}$CO(2 - 1) and C$^{18}$O(2 - 1) data of the SEDIGISM survey (Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic Inter Stellar Medium) allows us to analyse the kinematics of these targets and to determine their physical properties at a resolution of 30 arcsec and 0.25 km/s. To do so, we developed an automated algorithm to identify all velocity components along the line-of-sight correlated with the ATLASGAL dust emission, and derive size, mass, and kinematic properties for all velocity components. We find two-third of the filament candidates are coherent structures in position-position-velocity space. The remaining candidates appear to be the result of a superposition of two or three filamentary structures along the line-of-sight. At the resolution of the data, on average the filaments are in agreement with Plummer-like radial density profiles with a power-law exponent of p = 1.5 +- 0.5, indicating that they are typically embedded in a molecular cloud and do not have a well-defined outer radius. Also, we find a correlation between the observed mass per unit length and the velocity dispersion of the filament of $m \sim \sigma_v^2$. We show that this relation can be explained by a virial balance between self-gravity and pressure. Another possible explanation could be radial collapse of the filament, where we can exclude infall motions close to the free-fall velocity., Comment: 45 pages, 20 pages for Table of derived parameters

The origin and life-cycle of molecular clouds are still poorly constrained, despite their importance for understanding the evolution of the interstellar medium. We have carried out a systematic, homogeneous, spectroscopic survey of the inner Galactic plane, in order to complement the many continuum Galactic surveys available with crucial distance and gas-kinematic information. Our aim is to combine this data set with recent infrared to sub-millimetre surveys at similar angular resolutions. The SEDIGISM survey covers 78 deg^2 of the inner Galaxy (-60 deg < l < +18 deg, |b| < 0.5 deg) in the J=2-1 rotational transition of 13CO. This isotopologue of CO is less abundant than 12CO by factors up to 100. Therefore, its emission has low to moderate optical depths, and higher critical density, making it an ideal tracer of the cold, dense interstellar medium. The data have been observed with the SHFI single-pixel instrument at APEX. The observational setup covers the 13CO(2-1) and C18O(2-1) lines, plus several transitions from other molecules. The observations have been completed. Data reduction is in progress, and the final data products will be made available in the near future. Here we give a detailed description of the survey and the dedicated data reduction pipeline. Preliminary results based on a science demonstration field covering -20 deg < l < -18.5 deg are presented. Analysis of the 13CO(2-1) data in this field reveals compact clumps, diffuse clouds, and filamentary structures at a range of heliocentric distances. By combining our data with data in the (1-0) transition of CO isotopologues from the ThrUMMS survey, we are able to compute a 3D realization of the excitation temperature and optical depth in the interstellar medium. Ultimately, this survey will provide a detailed, global view of the inner Galactic interstellar medium at an unprecedented angular resolution of ~30"., Comment: 30 pages. Accepted for publication in A&A. Abstract slightly shortened due to arXiv requirements