Astrochemistry

From Gas To Stars Along The Spiral Wave: CO, HCN, And Star Formation Variations Across The Spiral Arms In NGC 4321 And M51

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.GA

May 9, 2026

Filed under astro-ph.GA, astrochemistry, astronomy, Interstellar, M51, molecular cloud, NGC 4321, NGC 5194, organic chemistry, Spectroscopy, telescope

From Gas To Stars Along The Spiral Wave: CO, HCN, And Star Formation Variations Across The Spiral Arms In NGC 4321 And M51 — Optical Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of the targets NGC 4321 (top) and M51 (bottom) overlaid with CO, HCN and SFR contours (from left to right). The CO (HCN) contours are drawn at S/N≥ 10, 30, and 60 (1, 3, 10, 30). The SFR contours correspond to the 70th, 85th, and 95th percentiles of the data. The spiral arm masks are indicated as white contours. Background HST image credit: NGC 4321: PHANGS-HST (Lee et al. 2022); M51: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). — astro-ph.GA

Molecular clouds form stars from the interstellar medium via gravitational collapse, following a sequence from low-density gas to high-density cores and eventually the formation of stars.

In classical density wave theory, gas clouds orbiting the galaxy experience gas compression and triggered star formation, while encountering the gravitational well of spiral arms. We aim to trace these different phases of the molecular cloud life cycle via tracers of molecular gas (CO), dense molecular gas (HCN), and star formation (Hα, 24 μm) within the spiral arms of two grand-design spiral galaxies: NGC 4321 and M51 (NGC 5194).

In the spiral arms of these galaxies, we investigate the relation between molecular gas, dense gas, and star formation (CO-HCN-SFR) at matched physical resolutions of 270 pc and 125 pc in NGC 4321 and M51, respectively.

We employed spiral arm masks for these galaxies and investigate trends of HCN/CO and SFR/HCN (SFR/CO), which serve as proxies for the dense gas fraction and dense (molecular) gas star formation efficiency, perpendicular to the spiral arm spines. We find that HCN/CO, SFR/CO, and SFR/HCN increase from the upstream towards the downstream side of both spiral arms of NGC 4321, while their trends are less prominent in M51.

Our results indicate that large-scale galactic dynamics (e.g. density waves) can induce a sequence of gas density and star formation-to-gas density variations perpendicular to the spiral arms. This sequence contributes to the increased scatter seen among spectroscopic ratios such as HCN/CO and SFR/HCN at sub-kiloparsec scales.

Minou Greve, Lukas Neumann, Mallory Thorp, Dario Colombo, Frank Bigiel, Miguel Querejeta, Sharon E. Meidt, Ashley T. Barnes, Zein Bazzi, Ralf S. Klessen, Adam K. Leroy, Hsi-An Pan, Jérôme Pety, Marina Ruiz-García, Eva Schinnerer, Rowan Smith, Sophia Stuber, Jiayi Sun, Antonio Usero, Thomas G. Williams

Comments: Accepted publication in A&A, 12 pages, 5 appendix, 15 figures
Subjects: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2605.05302 [astro-ph.GA] (or arXiv:2605.05302v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.05302
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Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202558779
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Submission history
From: Minou Greve
[v1] Wed, 6 May 2026 18:00:02 UTC (17,597 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.05302
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, AStronomy, interstellar,

Keith Cowing

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

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