We carried out magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to reveal the formation mechanism of molecular towers observed in the central region of our galaxy. These molecular clouds can be formed by the interaction of magnetic tower jet with the interstellar gas. When the jet collides with dense HI clouds, the HI gas is compressed by the bow shock ahead of the jet. Since the density enhancement triggers the cooling instability because it increases the cooling rate, the shocked gas cools down and forms cold, dense gas. We carried out MHD simulations including the cooling. The magnetized jet which triggers the formation of the molecular column appears in global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accretion disks, in which the magnetic loops emerging from the disk are twisted by the differential rotation between the footpoints of magnetic loops anchored to the disk. Numerical results indicate that the magnetic loops expand, and form a magnetic tower. When the ambient density is small, the propagation speed of the tower can be as large as the rotation speed of the disk. When the ambient density is high, the collision of the jet and the HI cloud forms dense molecular tower.

We study the evolution of SNRs in starburst regions taking into consideration the role of the high ambient pressure and the influence of gravitational forces from the stellar component within the shell of a SNR. On this basis, we discuss the connection between the radio, infrared, and gamma emissions from starburst regions.

The present star formation rate (SFR) in the inner Galaxy is puzzling for the chemical evolution models (CEM). No static CEM is able to reproduce the peak of the SFR in the 4 kpc ring. The main reason is probably a shortage of gas, which could be due to the dynamical effects produced by the galactic bar, not considered by these models. We developed a CEM that includes radial gas flows in order to mimic the effects of the galactic bar in the first 5 kpc of the galactic disk. In this model, the star formation (SF) is a two-step process: first, the diffuse gas forms molecular clouds. Then, stars form from cloud-cloud collisions or by the interaction between massive stars and the molecular gas. The former is called spontaneous and the latter induced SF. The mass in the different phases of each region changes by the processes associated with the stellar formation and death by: the SF due to spontaneous fragmentation of gas in the halo; formation of gas clouds in the disk from the diffuse gas; induced SF in the disk due to the interaction between massive stars and gas clouds; and finally, the restitution of the diffuse gas associated to these process of cloud and star formation. In the halo, the star formation rate for the diffuse gas follows a Schmidt law with a power n = 1.5. In the disk, the stars form in two steps: first, molecular clouds are formed from the diffuse gas also following a Schmidt law with n=1.5 and a proportionality factor. Including a specific pattern of radial gas flows, the CEM is able to reproduce with success the peak in the SFR at 4 kpc (fig. 1).

In this work we discuss the turbulent evolution of molecular clouds and the formation of dense structures within. Typically, the clumps evolution occurs apart from the secular evolution of the turbulent mother cloud due to its high density and large inertia. Despite of current theoretical assumptions we show, by means of numerical simulations, that the clump lifetimes are greater than previously thought by more than an order of magnitude. The presence of dense and long-lived clumps modifies the spectral line profiles of clouds, which are strongly related to the determination of Larson's relations. We address the main modifications of these if a realistic distribution of dense structures is taken into account.

We perform an unbiased search for outflows from YSOs along the Galactic Plane (GP). Our data has been taken as part of the UWISH2 survey (Froebrich et al. 2011). It uses as tracer the 1-0S(1) emission line of H2, and here we focus on a continuous 33 square degree sized region in Serpens and Aquila. We identify 130 outflows from which 94% are new discoveries. Thus, we increased the number of known MHOs by a factor of 15 in this area (Ioannidis & Froebrich 2012). The flux completeness limit for the flows is 3ċ10−18Wm−2. Typically, the known flows occupy the bright end of the flux distribution. Our survey thus increases the known integrated 1-0S(1) H2 flux from outflows only by a factor of two. We are able to assign possible driving sources to half of the outflows. Brighter MHOs are more likely to have a source candidate assigned to them.

Foreground star counts to GMCs associated with the outflows and the Besancon Galaxy model are used to determine distances. The method is calibrated using objects from the RMS survey. This allows us to estimate distances with a scatter of 25% (Ioannidis & Froebrich 2012). The spatial distribution of the outflows shows that they follow the GMC complexes in the GP. However, there are large areas with high extinction where no flows are detected. About 2/3 of the survey area is more or less devoid of outflows. The flows typically occur in groups of 3–5 members with a size of 5pc. The scale height of flows is ∼25–30pc, similar to young clusters and OB stars. The 1-0S(1) luminosities range from a few 10−4L⊙ to 0.1L⊙, ten times brighter than in nearby SF regions. Our sample is complete for objects brighter than 10−3L⊙ at 5kpc. This corresponds to HH211 behind AK = 1mag. The luminosity distribution of the outflows is a power law with N ∝ LH2−1.9 and the integrated luminosities indicate a Milky Way SF rate (averaged over a typical jet lifetime) of more than 0.4M⊙yr−1. The energy and momentum of the jets is insufficient to sustain the typical local turbulence levels in their parental clouds.

The projected jet length drops exponentially in number for longer jets. The fraction of parsec scale flows is 25%, twice as high as in nearby SF regions. A Monte-Carlo type model of jet speeds of 40–130kms−1 and ages between 4–20 × 103yrs can reproduce the length distribution. These lifetimes are an order of magnitude below estimates for the protostellar phase. For typical jet speeds the time gaps between the ejection of larger amounts of material are about 103yrs. According to the burst mode of SF models the creation of H2 knots is hence linked to low level fluctuations of the mass accretion rate and not FU-Ori type events. Their duty cycle is more in agreement with the total jet lifetime, which suggests these outburst as trigger (or stopping point or both) of a jet ejection phase. However, better constraints of the FU-Ori duty cycle and mechanism as well as more detailed models are required to draw any further conclusions.

We use measurements of the rotation curve of the Milky Way by the tangent point method to reconstruct the density model of the Milky Way. The observed inner rotation curve is fitted by a theoretical density model, consisting of a Dehnen bulge, an exponential disc with a hole, and a flattened dark matter halo with a cored isothermal or NFW density profile. The density model is also set to be consistent with the local density constraints in the solar neighborhood.

We performed 12CO(J = 2 − 1) and 13CO(J = 2 − 1) line surveys of the galactic plane using the AMANOGAWA telescope (Nakajima et al. 2007) which covers 5° ≤ l ≤ 180° on a 7'.5 grid. The telescope beamsize and velocity resolution are 8.7′ ± 0.4′ and 1.3 km s−1. The resultant rms noise level is typically 0.12 K in TA*. We found a linear correlation between 12CO(J = 2 − 1) and 12CO(J = 1 − 0) and a curved correlation between 12CO(J = 2 − 1) and 13CO (J = 2 − 1), although the intensity ratios of these three lines have intrinsic variation. These correlations can be reproduced with simple radiative transfer equations suggesting some restrictions on the physical quantities of molecular gas on a galactic scale.

EGOs are candidates of massive star forming regions that show signatures of outflows. A 1.1mm line survey has been performed to 89 EGOs using the AROSMT. Our high detection rates of H13CO+ 3-2 and SiO 6-5 lines support EGOs to be dense clouds harboring outflows.

Ubiquitous line luminosity linear correlations are found among different kinds of tracer lines: dense gas tracer H13CO+ 3-2, outflow tracer SiO 6-5, mixed dense gas and outflow tracers SO3Σ 65 − 54 and CH3OH lines, and relatively lower density gas tracers 12CO, 13CO, C18O 1-0 (see an example in Fig. 1). This can be explained if a universal similarity of density and thermal structures and probably of shock properties among all these EGO clouds are assumed. Furthermore, the outflow shocks are also required to be produced mainly inside of the natal clouds of the YSOs.

The data scatter of the luminosity (and line width) correlations show a clear trend of worsening across larger cloud substructure size scales or toward larger cloud sizes, which demonstrates the growth of randomness in cloud structures and velocity fields. See more details in our paper (He et al. 2012).

The first attempt at a census of all molecular clouds (MoC) in the Milky Way observed to date is presented. The catalog of MoC includes all observed and estimated physical parameters. The data will be used to compute a model of the MoC system in the Galaxy.

LAMOST has 4 meters in diameter with 4000 fibers in the focal plane. The telescope is now on the way towards full spectroscopy survey periods. This survey project has the potential to largely increase our understanding of the substructure of the Galactic stellar spheroid and different disk components through accurate measurements of radial velocities, metallicities and effective temperatures of millions of stars.

The spiral structure of our Milky Way has not yet been well outlined. HII regions, giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and 6.7-GHz methanol masers are primary tracers for spiral arms. We collect and update the database of these tracers which has been used in Hou et al. (2009) for the spiral arms.

The new database consists of ∼ 2000 HII regions, ∼ 1300 GMCs and ∼ 800 methanol masers (6.7 GHz). If the photometric or trigonometric distance for any tracer is available from the literature, we will adopt it. Otherwise, we have to use the kinematic distance. We modify the VLSR according to the newly determined solar motions (U0 = 10.27 km s−1, V0 = 15.32 km s−1 and W0 = 7.74 km s−1, Schönrich et al. 2010), then calculate the kinematic distances with a flat rotation curve (R0 = 8.3 kpc, θ0 = 239 km s−1, Brunthaler et al. 2011). Very important step is that we weight tracers according to the excitation parameters of HII regions or the masses of GMCs, and a constant weight for masers. All three kinds of tracers are used together to outline the spiral structure (Fig. 1). A contour and gray map is constructed after we made a Gaussian extension for the tracers with the amplitude of weighting parameter.

Submillimeter-wave observations of complex organic molecules toward southern massive star forming regions were carried out with ASTE 10m telescope. Methyl formate (HCOOCH3) and dimethyl ether (CH3OCH3) were detected in some molecular cloud cores with young protostars. Differences in chemical composition among neighboring cores were also found.

We have observed the parts of the second quadrant of the Galactic Plane in 13CO(1-0) using the multibeam receiver system installed on the 14 m telescope at Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory (TRAO). The first target region A (L=108° to 112°.5) is the part of the 12CO Outer Galactic Plane Survey (OGS; Heyer et al. 1998), and it is for the exact Galactic plane with the latitude range of +1 and -1 degree. A total of 48,000 spectra (about 9 square degrees) were obtained on 50″ grid. Two following regions were also observed; Region B: L = 120° ∼ 121°.7, B = −1° ∼ +1° (38,000 spectra) Region C: L = 130° 132°, B = −1° ∼ +1° (42,000 spectra). Eventually all the regions of the OGS will be covered. The selected velocity resolution is 0.63 km s−1 and the covered velocity is 320 km s−1, from −210 to 110 km s−1. The typical system temperature is ranging from 400 to 800 K, and average sensitivity per channel is 0.17 K.

We developed a new reduction method, which effectively deals with a relatively noisy 3-dimensional database. After using simple linear baseline subtraction, we mainly used the IRAF twod.longslit.background task in 3D within some scripts, as well as IRAF tasks dealing with statistics, and a revised FCRAO reduction package, which is working within IRAF as external user's tasks. The collected 13CO database will be manipulated with pre-existing 12CO data to get several physical parameters. As it is located in the second quadrant, the kinematic distances of the individual clouds, which will be identified, can be estimated straightforwardly without any distance ambiguity. In this meeting we present the reduction method, integrated intensity maps, and spatial-velocity maps. We intend to clarify any difference of their characteristics between the clouds in the Outer Galaxy and Inner Galaxy using our data base.

The present TRAO receiver system has aged, and thus its performance level degraded. However, we have a plan to renovate our receiver system to a brand new one within the next two years. This will speed up the TOGS project. At present, it costs substantial amount of time to homogeneously reduce the spectra obtained with our present receiver system. To compensate this, we invested more integration time, and developed more advanced reduction methods (see above). A future multibeam array receiver system at the TRAO would be at least 16 beams with most recent mixers (Tsys ∼ 150 K at 110GHz), hopefully.

Since November 2003, we have monitored AGB candidates in infrared wavelengths with the Kagoshima 1m telescope. We present the latest results based on the data until June 2011. For each of 400 monitored AGB stars, we estimate the periods, amplitudes, and mean apparent magnitudes in K band. Based on the two color diagram we choose 259 objects as Miras. We use the period–luminosity relation to obtain distances to them. As results we show the 3 dimensional distribution of 259 Mira variables.

We present a brief summary and description of the upcoming 12CO(1-0) Magellanic Mopra Assesment (MAGMA) SMC survey data release. The MAGMA-SMC survey has sampled 100% of the known CO in the SMC (at ∼33″ resolution; 12 pc at D = 60 kpc). Having explored 522 × 103 square parsecs throughout the SMC with 69 5′ × 5′ fields, to a sensitivity of ∼150 mK, we apply the cloudprops (Rosolowsky & Leroy 2006) cloud-search algorithm optimized for low S/N data, to detect more than 30 CO clouds with virial masses between 103–104 M⊙, mean radii ∼5 pc and 0.3–0.9 km s−1 velocity width. Typical brightness temperatures are ∼1 K Tmb. All detected molecular regions are associated with at least one 24 μm compact emission source. Smoothing rarely increases the total detected CO flux, implying the CO emission is typically confined to small spatial scales. As recent dust maps of the SMC imply extended H2 mass, the apparent compact nature of the CO population indicates some departures from the canonical Galactic XCO-factor in the low-metallicity and relatively un-evolved ISM of the SMC.

Formaldehyde (H2CO) is an accurate probe of physical conditions in dense and low-temperature molecular clouds towards massive star formation regions, while 6.7 GHz methanol (CH3OH) masers provide ideal sites to probe the earliest stages of massive stellar formation. We present preliminary results of our investigation into the possible relationship between formaldehyde and methanol astrophysical masers with the view to expanding knowledge on massive star formation processes. Observations are done using the Nanshan 25m radio telescope of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatories, Urumqi, China. 127 Methanol sources (from the work of Green et al. 2010, Xu et al. 2003, Pestalozzi et al. 2005, and Xu et al. 2009) have been observed so far for 4.8 GHz formaldehyde absorption lines, and H2CO signals have been detected in 86 of them, 31 of which are newly discovered. We obtained good correlation (0.85 correlation coefficient) between the velocities of the sources, and a poor correlation (−0.03 correlation coefficient) between their intensities, an indication that signals from the two lines originate from about the same region, but that the excitation mechanisms that drive them are likely different.

The Spitzer Legacy Program “Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Tidally-Stripped, Low-Metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud” (SAGE-SMC; Gordon et al. 2011) allows a global study of star formation in the SMC at high enough resolution to resolve individual cores and protostars at a range of mid-IR wavelengths. Using the SAGE-SMC IRAC (3.6 - 8.0 μm) and MIPS (24 and 70 μm) catalogs and images combined with the near-IR and optical data, we identified a population of ∼1100 intermediate- to high-mass Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) in the SMC (3 × more than previously known). We investigate the properties of the YSOs and how they relate to the galaxy's structure and gas and dust distribution.

We revealed a statistically significant clustering in the all sky distribution of AKARI-WISE young stellar objects with large groups of elongated and bush types.

We present the statistical properties of molecular clumps in the Galactic center 50 km s−1 molecular cloud based on observations of the CS J = 1 − 0 emission line with the Nobeyama Millimeter Array. The CMF and size spectrum for the whole cloud can be described by power laws of dN/dM ∝ M−2.6 ± 0.1 and dN/dR ∝ R−5.9±0.3, respectively. The CMF observed in the interacting part with the Sgr A East steepens to dN/dM ∝ M−4.0±0.2. On the other hand, the interaction presumably truncates the size spectrum on the larger side of R ∼ 0.4 pc.

We have compiled a sample of 106 lesser-known cores from the Herschel Galactic Cold Cloud Cores Key Program (Juvela, M. et al. 2007). Based on the assumption, that these represent the crowd of the cold cores in the galaxy well, we have started a deep individual investigation, beginning with a ground-based follow-up and molecular line measurement at IRAM 30m telescope. We present the methods and calculated values of the most important parameters on a selected source: the G130.38+11.25 molecular cloud, which is part of the L1340.