The CMZ Asymmetries: Feeding or Feedback?

Three-fourths of the dense gas and dust in the CMZ is located at positive longitudes and positive radial velocities. The majority of compact 24 micrometer wavelength sources are at negative longitudes. These two asymmetries indicate either a recent asymmetric injection of gas along the bar dust lanes, or that most of the molecular gas is contained in a small number of massive, gravitationally bound clouds, or a major feedback episode which dissociated an entire sector of the CMZ’s dense gas.