CO in extragalactic giant molecular clouds

Although the data are heterogeneous, we analyze them in a consistent manner to remove the biases introduced by limited sensitivity and resolution, thus obtaining reliable sizes, velocity dispersions, and luminosities.

We compare the results obtained in dwarf galaxies with those from the Local Group spiral galaxies. We find that extragalactic GMC properties measured across a wide range of environments are very much compatible with those in the Galaxy. The property that shows the largest variability is their resolved brightness temperature, although even that is similar to the average Galactic value in most sources.