Feeding cosmic star formation: exploring high-redshift molecular gas with CO intensity mapping.

The study of molecular gas is crucial for understanding star formation, feedback and the broader ecosystem of a galaxy as a whole. However, we have limited understanding of its physics and distribution in all but the nearest galaxies. We present a new technique for studying the composition and distribution ofmolecular gas in high-redshift galaxies inaccessible to existing methods. Our proposed approach is an extension of carbon monoxide intensity mapping methods, which have garnered significant experimental interest in recent years. These intensity mapping surveys target the 115 GHz 12CO (1-0) line, but also contain emission from the substantially fainter 110 GHz 13CO (1-0) transition. The method leverages the information contained in the 13CO line by cross-correlating pairs of frequency channels in an intensity mapping survey. Since 13CO is emitted from the same medium as the 12CO, but saturates at a much higher column density, this cross-correlation provides valuable information about both the gas density distribution and isotopologue ratio, inaccessible from the 12CO alone. Using a simple model of these molecular emission lines, we show that a future intensity mapping survey can constrain the abundance ratio of these two species and the fraction of emission from optically thick regions to order ~30 per cent. These measurements cannot be made by traditionalCOobservations, and consequently the proposed method will provide unique insight into the physics of star formation, feedback and galactic ecology at high redshifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]