Volume Density Structure of the Central Molecular Zone NGC 253 through ALCHEMI Excitation Analysis

We present a spatially resolved excitation analysis for the central molecular zone (CMZ) of the starburst galaxy NGC 253 using the data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Comprehensive High-resolution Extragalactic Molecular Inventory, whereby we explore parameters distinguishing NGC 253 from the quiescent Milky Way’s Galactic center (GC). Non-LTE analyses employing a hierarchical Bayesian framework are applied to Band 3–7 transitions from nine molecular species to delineate the position–position–velocity distributions of column density ( ${N}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}$ ), volume density ( ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}$ ), and temperature ( T _kin ) at 27 pc resolution. Two distinct components are detected: a low-density component with $({n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}},{T}_{\mathrm{kin}})\sim ({10}^{3.3}\ {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3},85\ {\rm{K}})$ and a high-density component with $({n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}},{T}_{\mathrm{kin}})\,\sim ({10}^{4.4}\ {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3},110\ {\rm{K}})$ , separated at ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}\sim {10}^{3.8}\ {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ . NGC 253 has ∼10 times the high-density gas mass and ∼3 times the dense-gas mass fraction of the GC. These properties are consistent with their HCN/CO ratio but cannot alone explain the factor of ∼30 difference in their star formation efficiencies (SFEs), contradicting the dense-gas mass to star formation rate scaling law. The ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}$ histogram toward NGC 253 exhibits a shallow declining slope up to ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}\sim {10}^{6}\ {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ , while that of the GC steeply drops in ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}\gtrsim {10}^{4.5}\ {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ and vanishes at 10 ^5 cm ^−3 . Their dense-gas mass fraction ratio becomes consistent with their SFEs when the threshold ${n}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}$ for the dense gas is taken at ∼10 ^4.2−4.6 cm ^−3 . The rich abundance of gas above this density range in the NGC 253 CMZ, or its scarcity in the GC, is likely to be the critical difference characterizing the contrasting star formation in the centers of the two galaxies.