TheHerschelExploitation of Local Galaxy Andromeda (HELGA)
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abstract
We have obtained Herschel images at five wavelengths from 100 to 500 micron
of a ~5.5x2.5 degree area centred on the local galaxy M31 (Andromeda), our
nearest neighbour spiral galaxy, as part of the Herschel guaranteed time
project "HELGA". The main goals of HELGA are to study the characteristics of
the extended dust emission, focusing on larger scales than studied in previous
observations of Andromeda at an increased spatial resolution, and the obscured
star formation. In this paper we present data reduction and Herschel maps, and
provide a description of the far-infrared morphology, comparing it with
features seen at other wavelengths. We use high--resolution maps of the atomic
hydrogen, fully covering our fields, to identify dust emission features that
can be associated to M31 with confidence, distinguishing them from emission
coming from the foreground Galactic cirrus. Thanks to the very large extension
of our maps we detect, for the first time at far-infrared wavelengths, three
arc-like structures extending out to ~21, ~26 and ~31 kpc respectively, in the
south-western part of M31. The presence of these features, hosting ~2.2e6 Msol
of dust, is safely confirmed by their detection in HI maps. Overall, we
estimate a total dust mass of ~5.8e7 Msol, about 78% of which is contained in
the two main ring-like structures at 10 and 15 kpc, at an average temperature
of 16.5 K. We find that the gas-to-dust ratio declines exponentially as a
function of the galacto-centric distance, in agreement with the known
metallicity gradient, with values ranging from 66 in the nucleus to ~275 in the
outermost region. [Abridged]
