The Properties of Giant Molecular Clouds in Nearby Galaxies and their Environmental Variation

Abstract

Investigating giant molecular clouds (GMC) in external galaxies presents the opportunity to examine how the distribution, density structure and dynamical state of star forming clouds depend on the galactic environment. This thesis has focused on determining the physical properties and distribution of GMCs and clumps in M33 and compare them to other nearby galaxies including the Milky Way.
We have used archival data from the Atacama Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). For the first time, we have resolved and uncovered physical properties of molecular clouds at clump level in M33 at a distance of 840 kpc. We began with resolving NGC 604 GMCs into smaller molecular clouds using 13CO(1