Published papers

For efficient spectroscopic redshift identification of early galaxies in the northern hemisphere, we aim to combine the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) with a wide-band heterodyne receiver, FINER, which will cover radio frequencies of 120-360 GHz and offer a 3-21 GHz intermediate frequency (IF) per sideband and polarization. To take full advantage of such wide IFs, we present a novel 10.24-GHz-wide digital spectrometer, DRS4 (Elecs Industry Co., Ltd.). It incorporates 20.48 Gsps samplers with an FPGA-based digital signal processing module. To mitigate the noise contamination from the image sideband, it is equipped with a digital sideband separation function to improve the sideband rejection up to 25 dB. Laboratory performance evaluations show that it exhibits an Allan time of at least ∼ 100 s and a total power dynamic range of at least 7 dB. These results demonstrate its capability of instantaneously wide-band spectroscopy toward high-redshift galaxies with position-switching observations.

Unveiling the emergence and prevalence of massive/bright galaxies during the epoch of reionization and beyond, within the first 600 million years of the Universe, stands as a pivotal pursuit in astronomy. Remarkable progress has been made by JWST in identifying an immense population of bright galaxies, which hints at exceptionally efficient galaxy assembly processes. However, the underlying physical mechanisms propelling their rapid growth remain unclear. With this in mind, millimeter and submillimeter-wave spectroscopic observations of redshifted far-infrared spectral lines, particularly the [O iii] 88 µm and [C ii] 158 µm lines, offers a crucial pathway to address this fundamental query. To this end, we develop a dual-polarization sideband-separating superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer receiver, FINER, for the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) situated in Mexico. Harnessing advancements from ALMA's wideband sensitivity upgrade (WSU) technology, FINER covers radio frequencies spanning 120-360 GHz, delivering an instantaneous intermediate frequency (IF) of 3-21 GHz per sideband per polarization, which is followed by a set of 10.24 GHz-wide digital spectrometers. At 40% of ALMA's light-collecting area, the LMT's similar atmospheric transmittance and FINER's 5 times wider bandwidth compared to ALMA culminate in an unparalleled spectral scanning capability in the northern hemisphere, paving the way for finer spectral-resolution detection of distant galaxies.

Observations of chemical species can provide an insight into the physical conditions of the emitting gas but it is important to understand how their abundances and excitation vary within different heating environments. C$_2$H is a molecule typically found in PDR regions of our own Galaxy but there is evidence to suggest it also traces other regions undergoing energetic processing in extragalactic environments. As part of the ALCHEMI ALMA large program, the emission of C$_2$H in the central molecular zone of the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253 was mapped at 1.6 " (28 pc) resolution and characterized to understand its chemical origins. Spectral modelling of the N=1-0 through N=4-3 rotational transitions of C$_2$H was used to derive the C$_2$H column densities towards the dense clouds in NGC 253. Chemical modelling, including PDR, dense cloud, and shock models were then used to investigate the chemical processes and physical conditions that are producing the molecular emission. We find high C$_2$H column densities of $\sim 10^{15} cm^{-3}$ detected towards the dense regions of NGC 253. We further find that these column densities cannot be reproduced by assuming that the emission arises from the PDR regions at the edge of the clouds. Instead, we find that the C$_2$H abundance remains high even in the high visual extinction interior of these clouds and that this is most likely caused by a high cosmic-ray ionization rate.

We report on the results of the on-sky test and science demonstration conducted with the 2 mm receiver system, B4R, on the 50 m Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), located at an altitude of 4600 m in Mexico. The B4R receiver was developed based on the dual-polarization sideband-separating mixer technology of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and is equipped with a fast Fourier transform digital spectrometer, XFFTS. The primary science objective is the spectroscopic redshift identification of high-redshift dusty star-forming galaxies, complementing the existing 3 mm Redshift Search Receiver by enabling the detection of multiple carbon monoxide lines. Additionally, the B4R receiver broadens the range of science cases possible with the LMT, including astrochemistry, as the 2 mm band encompasses unique molecular lines such as deuterated molecules and shock tracers. During on-site commissioning in 2018 and 2019, we successfully demonstrated on-the-fly mapping and position-switching observations toward the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 and bright high-redshift dusty star-forming galaxies, respectively. We confirmed that the installed B4R system largely met its basic performance specifications. Furthermore, we measured the LMT's aperture efficiencies across the entire B4R frequency range (130-160 GHz), finding them to be roughly consistent with expectations based on a surface accuracy of 100 $μ$m and the receiver optics design. These results with the B4R will enable the most sensitive single-dish spectroscopic observations at 2 mm using the LMT.

We present the results of mapping and single-point spectral scans toward Orion-KL/OMC-1 performed as science demonstrations of a 2mm superconductor–insulator–superconductor receiver, named the Band 4 Receiver (B4R), installed on the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), with a diameter of 50m. To prove the capabilities of mapping and spectral scans with the B4R on the LMT, commissioning observations were conducted employing the on-the-fly mapping technique toward Orion-KL/OMC-1, which covers a map size of 5′ × 5′. These mapping observations were performed with two frequency settings providing 10GHz in total (131.4–133.9 and 145.1–147.6GHz; 136.2–138.7 and 149.9–152.4GHz) with a frequency resolution of 76.293kHz. In this study, we conducted spectral line identification analysis for the hot core and compact ridge regions in the Orion-KL with a beam size of 11″–12″. We detected nearly 400 emission lines and identified two recombination lines and 29 molecular species, including isotopologues, deuterated molecules, and vibrational excited states, despite the short integration time. These results of line detection are consistent with those of previous studies. The 29 molecular species include nitrogen (N)-bearing complex organic molecules (COMs) and oxygen (O)-bearing COMs. To demonstrate the capability of the B4R in astrochemistry, we conducted detailed analyses of column densities, rotational temperatures, and relative abundances with respect to H2 on two representative COMs, N-bearing C2H5CN and O-bearing CH3OCHO in the central 40″ × 40″ area of the map. The wide bandwidth of 10GHz enabled the use of 8 and 34 emission lines, respectively. The spatial differences in the physical and chemical properties between the above two molecules were derived at a spatial resolution of ∼12″. The B4R on the LMT was successfully demonstrated to be powerful for mapping and spectral scans and to have high potential for the study of interstellar chemistry.

The cosmic-ray ionization rate (CRIR) is a key parameter in understanding the physical and chemical processes in the interstellar medium. Cosmic rays are a significant source of energy in star formation regions, impacting the physical and chemical processes that drive the formation of stars. Previous studies of the circum-molecular zone of the starburst galaxy NGC 253 have found evidence for a high CRIR value: 103-106 times the average CRIR within the Milky Way. This is a broad constraint, and one goal of this study is to determine this value with much higher precision. We exploit ALMA observations toward the central molecular zone of NGC 253 to measure the CRIR. We first demonstrate that the abundance ratio of H3O+ and SO is strongly sensitive to the CRIR. We then combine chemical and radiative transfer models with nested sampling to infer the gas properties and CRIR of several star-forming regions in NGC 253 from emission from their transitions. We find that each of the four regions modeled has a CRIR in the range (1-80) × 10-14 s-1 and that this result adequately fits the abundances of other species that are believed to be sensitive to cosmic rays, including C2H, HCO+, HOC+, and CO. From shock and photon-dominated/X-ray dominated region models, we further find that neither UV-/X-ray-driven nor shock-dominated chemistry is a viable single alternative as none of these processes can adequately fit the abundances of all of these species.

This paper reports a reanalysis of archival ALMA data of the high velocity(-width) compact cloud CO-0.40-0.22, which has recently been hypothesized to host an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). If beam-smearing effects, difference in beam sizes among frequency bands, and Doppler shift due to the motion of the Earth are considered accurately, none of the features reported as evidence for an IMBH in previous studies are confirmed in the reanalyzed ALMA images. Instead, through analysis of the position-velocity structure of the HCN J = 3-2 data cube, we have found kinematics typical of a cloud-cloud collision (CCC), namely, two distinct velocity components bridged by broad emission features with elevated temperatures and/or densities. One velocity component has a straight filamentary shape with approximately constant centroid velocities along its length but with a steep, V-shaped velocity gradient across its width. This contradicts the IMBH scenario but is consistent with a collision between two dissimilar-sized clouds. From a non-LTE analysis of the multitransition methanol lines, the volume density of the post-shock gas has been measured to be 106 cm-3, indicating that the CCC shock can compress gas in a short timescale to densities typical of star-forming regions. Evidence for star formation has not been found, possibly because the cloud is in an early phase of CCC-triggered star formation or because the collision is nonproductive.

Atomic carbon (C0), being one of the most abundant atomic/molecular species observed in dense molecular gas, is potentially a good tracer of molecular gas mass in many chemical/physical environments, though the variation in C0 abundance outside the Galactic disk region is not yet fully known. This paper presents a wide-field 500 GHz [C i] map of the Galactic central molecular zone (CMZ) obtained with the ASTE 10 m telescope. Principal component analysis and non-LTE multi-transition analysis have shown that [C i] emission predominantly originates from the low-excitation gas component with a temperature of 20-50 K and density of ∼103 cm-3, whereas C0 abundance is likely suppressed in the high-excitation gas component. The average N(C0)/N(CO) abundance ratio in the CMZ is 0.3-0.4, which is 2-3 times that in the Galactic disk. The N(C0)/N(CO) ratio increases to 0.7 in the innermost 10 pc region and to ∼2 in the circumnuclear disk. We discovered C0-rich regions distributed in a ring shape encircling the supernova remnant (SNR) Sgr A East, indicating that the C0 enrichment in the central 10 pc region is a consequence of a molecular cloud-SNR interaction. In the 15 atoms/molecules included in principal component analysis, CN is the only other species that increases in the [C i]-bright ring. The origin of the [C i]-bright ring is likely a cosmic-ray-dominated region created by low-energy cosmic-ray particles accelerated by Sgr A East or primitive molecular gas collected by the SNR in which the conversion from C0 to CO has not reached equilibrium.