Plateau de Bure Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey (PAWS): Multiscale Analysis of the ISM in the Whirlpool Galaxy

Property and moment analysis of H2 derived through the tracer 12CO(J=1 → 0) can reveal properties of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and giant molecular associations (GMAs) where much of the star formation occurs. These regions are typically small in scale and often nestled inside of one another making imaging difficult in extragalactic sources. Recently, the Plateau de Bure Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey (PAWS) obtained a 12CO(J=1 → 0) map of the center region of M51 at a 37pc scale. We analyze this dataset using the CPROPS routine that decomposes the emission into individual clouds (GMCs), and using the dendrograms to study the properties as a function of scale. Recent work with this galaxy has revealed that the GMC properties are different than the galactic equivalent, and that less of them are gravitationally bound according to virial assumption. These newer techniques provide us a tool to decompose of the molecular gas into gravitationally bound clouds and measure the properties of these catalogues of GMAs. We present a catalogue of gravitationally bound GMAs and show that the property measurements have stronger correlation than the GMCs. Publication of this paper is pending. A link to the full text will be available on completion of the publication process