Evidence for an Interaction between the Galactic Center Clouds M0.10–0.08 and M0.11–0.11

Abstract

We present high-resolution (∼2–3″; ∼0.1 pc) radio observations of the Galactic center cloud M0.10−0.08 using the Very Large Array at K and Ka band (∼25 and 36 GHz). The M0.10−0.08 cloud is located in a complex environment near the Galactic center Radio Arc and the adjacent M0.11−0.11 molecular cloud. From our data, M0.10−0.08 appears to be a compact molecular cloud (∼3 pc) that contains multiple compact molecular cores (5+; <0.4 pc). In this study, we detect a total of 15 molecular transitions in M0.10−0.08 from the following molecules: NH3, HC3N, CH3OH, HC5N, CH3CN, and OCS. We have identified more than sixty 36 GHz CH3OH masers in M0.10−0.08 with brightness temperatures above 400 K and 31 maser candidates with temperatures between 100 and 400 K. We conduct a kinematic analysis of the gas using NH3 and detect multiple velocity components toward this region of the Galactic center. The bulk of the gas in this region has a velocity of 51.5 km s−1 (M0.10−0.08) with a lower-velocity wing at 37.6 km s−1. We also detect a relatively faint velocity component at 10.6 km s−1 that we attribute to being an extension of the M0.11−0.11 cloud. Analysis of the gas kinematics, combined with past X-ray fluorescence observations, suggests M0.10−0.08 and M0.11−0.11 are located in the same vicinity of the Galactic center and could be physically interacting.