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29th of January 2020
ATNF Colloquium
Radio Astronomy in the Era of Large surveys: Interpreting the results of large, multi-molecular-line datasets of the molecular ISM
Maria Cunningham (UNSW)
Abstract: In the last decade, the development of wide-bandwidth receivers and fast wide-field mapping has led to the collection of far more data than can possibly be processed and analysed manually. In this presentation I describe how automated data processing techniques, such as principal component analysis, filament finding algorithms and probability density function analyses can be used to interpret these large multi-molecular-line datasets. I will also discuss how these techniques have been used to analyse the CSIRO CASS Mopra telescope millimetre-wave large surveys of the G333 and Vela C molecular clouds. I will show how the Mopra surveys have allowed us to determine which molecules respectively trace the turbulent and gravitationally bound components of the interstellar medium, and show how comparing subsets of molecules, for example CS, N2H+, HCO+ and C2H, can be used to highlight star forming regions at different stages of development in these large datasets.

The image above shows a dense filament in the Vela C region made from Herschel infrared dust emission. The contours show ATCA NH3 emission (tracing dense star-forming gas), while the blue pseudo vectors show the strength and direction of the magnetic fields, using data from the BLASTPol balloon borne mission.




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