EMIR Multiline Probe of the ISM Regulating Galaxy Evolution (EMPIRE)

The “EMIR Multiline Probe of the ISM Regulating Galaxy Evolution” (EMPIRE) survey is a ~600h IRAM 30m, wide-area, multi-line mapping survey targeting high critical density molecular lines and CO isotopologues in the 3mm window across the disks of 9 nearby, star-forming, disk galaxies (resolution 30″ at 90GHz or 1-2kpc). EMPIRE is an international collaboration led by Frank Bigiel (Univ. Bonn).

The survey covers the key lines 13CO(1-0), C18O(1-0), HCN (1-0), HCO+(1-0) and HNC(1-0) and is complemented by new, sensitive 12CO(1-0) data also made available here (PIs: M. Jiménez-Donaire & D. Cormier). The core goals of EMPIRE are to constrain dense gas fraction and star formation efficiency across galaxy disks and explore how they depend on local conditions (molecular fraction, hydrostatic pressure, radiation field, stellar potential, etc.).

More details are given on the EMPIRE webpage, which includes a list of EMPIRE publications. The official data repository is at IRAM. For details on the data processing see Jiménez-Donaire et al. (2019). The IRAM repository provides the following data products: data cubes, integrated intensity and associated uncertainty maps for all lines as well as intensity-weighted velocity maps for 12CO(1-0) and 13CO(1-0). The associated README file provides a detailed description of the data release. The survey paper Jiménez-Donaire et al. (2019) also provides tabulated, resolved (“pixel-by-pixel”) line measurements for the sample as online tables.

Please do not hesitate to contact Frank Bigiel and María J. Jiménez-Donaire for further questions or to inform them about the use of the data for further scientific publications.

The following acknowledgment would be appreciated: “This work made use of data from EMPIRE, ‘The IRAM 30-m Dense Gas Survey of Nearby Galaxies’ (Jiménez-Donaire et al. 2019).” Acknowledgment of the EMPIRE survey is also appreciated if data are used in public presentations.

EMPIRE 12CO(1-0) in color and HCN(1-0) in contours at 33” resolution for our sample of 9 galaxies.

The data repository is here.

Last update: April 29, 2019