Molecular Gas Outflow in the Starburst Galaxy NGC 1482

Abstract: Galactic winds are essential to regulation of star formation in galaxies. To study the distribution and dynamics of molecular gas in a wind, we imaged the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 1482 in CO ($J=1\rightarrow0$) at a resolution of 1'' ($\approx100$ pc) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Molecular gas is detected in a nearly edge-on disk with a radius of 3 kpc and a biconical outflow emerging from the central 1 kpc starburst and extending to at least 1.5 kpc perpendicular to the disk. In the outflow, CO gas is distributed approximately as a cylindrically symmetrical envelope surrounding the warm and hot ionized gas traced by H$\alpha$ and soft X-rays. The velocity, mass outflow rate, and kinetic energy of the molecular outflow are $v_\mathrm{w}\sim100~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$, $\dot{M}\mathrm{w}\sim7~M\odot~\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$, and $E_\mathrm{w}\sim7\times10^{54}~\mathrm{erg}$, respectively. $\dot{M}\mathrm{w}$ is comparable to the star formation rate ($\dot{M}\mathrm{w}/\mathrm{SFR}\sim2$) and $E_\mathrm{w}$ is $\sim1\%$ of the total energy released by stellar feedback in the past $1\times10^7~\mathrm{yr}$, which is the dynamical timescale of the outflow. The results indicate that the wind is starburst driven.