The Gas Morphology of Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies

Understand

The morphology of a galaxy stems from secular and environmental processes during its evolutionary history.

• Thus galaxy morphologies have been a long used tool to gain insights on galaxy evolution.
• We visually classify morphologies on cloud-scales based on the molecular gas distribution of a large sample of 79 nearby main-sequence galaxies, using 1'' resolution CO(2-1) ALMA observations taken as part of the PHANGS survey.
• To do so, we devise a morphology classification scheme for different types of bars, spiral arms (grand-design, flocculent, multi-arm and smooth), rings (central and non-central rings) similar to the well-established optical ones, and further introduce bar lane classes.