The Foundations of Multi-line Molecular Cloud Population Synthesis

Abstract

Abstract While galactic molecular clouds have been studied in great detail, the spatial resolution of current single-dish radio telescopes inhibits our ability to resolve individual molecular clouds in external galaxies. In this case, the line luminosity signal received is an average over a ≥100 pc diameter beam containing several molecular clouds. This leads us to an interesting question: If we point the telescope beam at a region of molecular clouds in a nearby galaxy, can we meaningfully decompose the unresolved signal we receive? In this work, we formulate theoretical methods of decomposing a galaxy line luminosity signal into its cloud population line luminosity components.