Abstract
We present Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array interferometric CO(J=1–0), KPNO near infrared and H α observations of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5383. We find that the CO emission is strongly concentrated in the nuclear region with three distinct peaks coinciding with peaks of dust emission observed via our color maps. Two of the peaks clearly correspond to the intersection of the bar dust lanes with the nuclear ring. Significant CO emission extending up to 500 pc along the dust lane is also detected. The total molecular gas content in the nuclear region provides an important constraint on the star formation rate in the nucleus. We discuss the total gas content as derived from our CO and dust maps. Comparison of the observed H α emission, which is a measure of the star formation rate, to the total gas content then yields a lifetime for the nuclear ring.
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