Molecular gas in the outflow of the Small Magellanic Cloud. (arXiv:1910.10718v1 [astro-ph.GA])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Teodoro_E/0/1/0/all/0/1">Enrico M. Di Teodoro</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+McClure_Griffiths_N/0/1/0/all/0/1">N. M. McClure-Griffiths</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Breuck_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">C. De Breuck</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Armillotta_L/0/1/0/all/0/1">L. Armillotta</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Pingel_N/0/1/0/all/0/1">N. M. Pingel</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Jameson_K/0/1/0/all/0/1">K. E. Jameson</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Dickey_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">J. M. Dickey</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Rubio_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Rubio</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Stanimirovic_S/0/1/0/all/0/1">S. Stanimirovic</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Staveley_Smith_L/0/1/0/all/0/1">L. Staveley-Smith</a>

We report the first evidence of molecular gas in two atomic hydrogen (HI)
clouds associated with gas outflowing from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We
used the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) to detect and spatially resolve
individual clumps of CO(2-1) emission in both clouds. CO clumps are compact (~
10 pc) and dynamically cold (linewidths < 1 km/s). Most CO emission appears to be offset from the peaks of the HI emission, some molecular gas lies in regions without a clear HI counterpart. We estimate a total molecular gas mass of 10^3-10^4 Msun in each cloud and molecular gas fractions up to 30% of the total cold gas mass (molecular + neutral). Under the assumption that this gas is escaping the galaxy, we calculated a cold gas outflow rate of 0.3-1.8 Msun/yr and mass loading factors of 3 -12 at a distance larger than 1 kpc. These results show that relatively weak star-formation-driven winds in dwarf galaxies like the SMC are able to accelerate significant amounts of cold and dense matter and inject it into the surrounding environment.

We report the first evidence of molecular gas in two atomic hydrogen (HI)
clouds associated with gas outflowing from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We
used the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) to detect and spatially resolve
individual clumps of CO(2-1) emission in both clouds. CO clumps are compact (~
10 pc) and dynamically cold (linewidths < 1 km/s). Most CO emission appears to
be offset from the peaks of the HI emission, some molecular gas lies in regions
without a clear HI counterpart. We estimate a total molecular gas mass of
10^3-10^4 Msun in each cloud and molecular gas fractions up to 30% of the total
cold gas mass (molecular + neutral). Under the assumption that this gas is
escaping the galaxy, we calculated a cold gas outflow rate of 0.3-1.8 Msun/yr
and mass loading factors of 3 -12 at a distance larger than 1 kpc. These
results show that relatively weak star-formation-driven winds in dwarf galaxies
like the SMC are able to accelerate significant amounts of cold and dense
matter and inject it into the surrounding environment.

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