Observing simulations: molecular clouds and their journey in the galaxy

School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, UK

Abstract

In order to have a global picture of the cycle of matter in galaxies, we need to understand the interplay of large-scale galactic phenomena with the formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and, ultimately, their subsequent star formation (SF). In this work, we study the population of GMCs within a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation of a spiral galaxy, and investigate the link between the GMC properties and position with respect to spiral arms, both directly from the simulation (with the 3D densities of H₂ and CO) and from an observer's perspective (with CO emission in PPV space).