An Unbiased CO Survey Toward the Northern Region of the Small Magellanic Cloud with the Atacama Compact Array. II. CO Cloud Catalog

Takahiro Ohno, Kazuki Tokuda, Ayu Konishi, Takeru Matsumoto, Marta Sewiło, Hiroshi Kondo, Hidetoshi Sano, Kisetsu Tsuge, Sarolta Zahorecz, Nao Goto, Naslim Neelamkodan, Tony Wong, Hajime Fukushima, Tatsuya Takekoshi, Kazuyuki Muraoka, Akiko Kawamura, Kengo Tachihara, Yasuo Fukui, Toshikazu Onishi

Published 2023-04-03Version 1

The nature of molecular clouds and their statistical behavior in sub-solar metallicity environments are not fully explored yet. We analyzed an unbiased CO($J$ = 2-1) survey data at a spatial resolution of $\sim$2 pc in the northern region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with the Atacama Compact Array to characterize the CO cloud properties. A cloud decomposition analysis identified 426 spatially/velocity-independent CO clouds and their substructures. Based on the cross-matching with known infrared catalogs by Spitzer and Herschel, more than 90% CO clouds show spatial correlations with point sources. We investigated the basic properties of the CO clouds and found that the radius-velocity linewidth ($R$-$\sigma_{v}$) relation follows the Milky Way (MW) like power-low exponent, but the intercept is $\sim$1.5 times lower than that in the MW. The mass functions ($dN/dM$) of the CO luminosity and virial mass are characterized by an exponent of $\sim$1.7, which is consistent with previously reported values in the Large Magellanic Cloud and MW.