Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Velocity dispersions are used to determine the stability of galactic disks against gravitational collapse to form stars, in some star formation recipes, in studies of gas dynamics, and to determine how much turbulence there is in the interstellar medium. Atomic hydrogen (HI) dispersions have been used in the studies of star formation and large-scale turbulence, despite stars forming in molecular clouds and the inner regions of galaxies being dominated by molecular gas. Carbon monoxide (CO) has been used as a tracer for molecular gas. In this work HI and CO dispersions were determined for a sample of nearby galaxies and they were compared to determine what the relationship between HI and molecular gas dispersions is.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/12098 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Mogotsi, Keoikantse Moses |
| Contributors | De Blok, W J G |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Science, Department of Astronomy |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | application/pdf |
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