CO at Low-metallicity: Molecular Clouds in the dwarf galaxy WLM

Metallicity is not a passive result of galaxy evolution, but a crucial driver. Dwarf galaxies are low in heavy elements, which has important consequences for the ability to form cold, dense clouds that form stars. Molecular cores shrink and atomic envelopes grow in star-forming clouds as the metallicity drops. We are testing this picture of changing structure with metallicity with Herschel [CII]158 micron images of the photo-dissociation regions and ALMA maps of CO in star-forming regions in 4 dwarf irregular galaxies. These galaxies cover a range in metallicity from 13% solar to 5% solar. Here we report on the structure of the molecular clouds in WLM, a dwarf galaxy at 13% solar abundance where we for the first time detected CO emission at such a low heavy element abundance.The Herschel part of this work was supported by grant RSA #1433776 from JPL.