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Atsushi Nishimura

Publications and source records attributed to Atsushi Nishimura.

54 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

CO observations of the molecular gas in the galactic HII region Sh2-48; Evidence for cloud-cloud collision as a trigger of high-mass star formation

Sh2-48 is a Galactic HII region located at 3.8 kpc with an O9.5-type star identified at its center. As a part of the FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey using the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) project, we obtained the CO J=1-0 dataset for a large area of Sh2-48 at a spatial resolution of 21"(~0.4 pc), which we used to find a molecular cloud with a total molecular mass of ~3.8x10^4 Mo associated with Sh2-48. The molecular cloud has a systematic velocity shift within a velocity range ~42-47 km/s . On the lower velocity side the CO emission spatially corresponds with the bright 8 μm filament at the western rim of Sh2-48, while the CO emission at higher velocities is separated at the eastern and western sides of the 8μm filament. This velocity change forms V-shaped, east-west-oriented feature on the position-velocity diagram. We found that these lower and higher-velocity components are, unlike the infrared and radio continuum data, physically associated with Sh2-48. To interpret the observed V-shaped velocity distribution, we assessed a cloud-cloud collision scenario and found from a comparison between the observations and simulations that the velocity distribution is an expected outcome of a collision between a cylindrical cloud and a spherical cloud, with the cylindrical cloud corresponding to the lower-velocity component, and the two separated components in the higher-velocity part interpretable as the collision-broken remnants of the spherical cloud. Based on the consistency of the ~1.3Myr estimated formation timescale of the HII region with that of the collision, we concluded that the high-mass star formation in Sh2-48 was triggered by the collision.

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Large-scale CO J=1-0 observations of the giant molecular cloud associated with the infrared ring N35 with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope

We report an observational study of the giant molecular cloud (GMC) associated with the Galactic infrared ring-like structure N35 and two nearby HII regions G024.392+00.072 (HII region A) and G024.510-00.060 (HII region B), using the new CO J=1-0 data obtained as a part of the FOREST Unbiased Galactic Plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) project at a spatial resolution of 21". Our CO data revealed that the GMC, with a total molecular mass of 2.1x10^6Mo, has two velocity components over ~10-15km/s. The majority of molecular gas in the GMC is included in the lower-velocity component (LVC) at ~110-114km/s, while the higher-velocity components (HVCs) at ~118-126km/s consist of three smaller molecular clouds which are located near the three HII regions. The LVC and HVCs show spatially complementary distributions along the line-of-sight, despite large velocity separations of ~5-15km/s, and are connected in velocity by the CO emission with intermediate intensities. By comparing the observations with simulations, we discuss a scenario where collisions of the three HVCs with LVC at velocities of ~10-15km/s can provide an interpretation of these two observational signatures. The intermediate velocity features between the LVC and HVCs can be understood as broad bridge features, which indicate the turbulent motion of the gas at the collision interfaces, while the spatially complementary distributions represent the cavities created in the LVC by the HVCs through the collisions. Our model indicates that the three HII regions were formed after the onset of the collisions, and it is therefore suggested that the high-mass star formation in the GMC was triggered by the collisions.

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A new look at the molecular gas in M42 and M43; possible evidence for cloud-cloud collision which triggered formation of the OB stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster

The Orion Nebula Cluster toward the HII region M42 is the most outstanding young cluster at the smallest distance 410pc among the rich high-mass stellar clusters. By newly analyzing the archival molecular data of the 12CO(J=1-0) emission at 21" resolution, we identified at least three pairs of complementary distributions between two velocity components at 8km/s and 13km/s. We present a hypothesis that the two clouds collided with each other and triggered formation of the high-mass stars, mainly toward two regions including the nearly ten O stars, theta1 Ori and theta2 Ori, in M42 and the B star, NU Ori, in M43. The timescale of the collision is estimated to be ~0.1Myr by a ratio of the cloud size and velocity corrected for projection, which is consistent with the age of the youngest cluster members less than 0.1Myr. The majority of the low-mass cluster members were formed prior to the collision in the last one Myr. We discuss implications of the present hypothesis and the scenario of high-mass star formation by comparing with the other eight cases of triggered O star formation via cloud-cloud collision.

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Molecular clouds toward three Spitzer bubbles S116, S117 and S118: Evidence for the cloud-cloud collision which formed the three \HII \ regions and a 10-pc scale molecular cavity

We carried out a molecular line study toward the three Spitzer bubbles S116, S117 and S118 which show active formation of high-mass stars. We found molecular gas consisting of two components with velocity difference of {$\sim 5$ \kms}. One of them, the small cloud, has typical velocity of {$-63$ \kms} \ and the other, the large cloud, has that of $-58$ \kms. The large cloud has a nearly circular intensity depression whose size is similar to the small cloud. We present an interpretation that the cavity was created by a collision between the two clouds and the collision compressed the gas into a dense layer elongated along the western rim of the small cloud. In this scenario, the O stars including those in the three Spitzer bubbles were formed in the interface layer compressed by the collision. By assuming that the relative motion of the clouds has a tilt of \timeform{45D} to the line of sight, we estimate that the collision continued over the last 1 Myr at relative velocity of $\sim$10 \kms. In the S116--117--118 system the \HII \ regions are located outside of the cavity. This morphology is ascribed to the density-bound distribution of the large cloud which made the \HII \ regions more easily expand toward the outer part of the large cloud than inside of the cavity. The present case proves that a cloud-cloud collision creates a cavity without an action of O star feedback, and suggests that the collision-compressed layer is highly filamentary.

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Molecular gas in the compact H{\sc ii} region RCW 166; possible evidence for an early phase of cloud-cloud collision prior to the bubble formation

Young HII regions are an important site to study O star formation based on distributions of ionized and molecular gas. We revealed that two molecular clouds at $\sim 48$ km s$^{-1}$ and $\sim 53$ km s$^{-1}$ are associated with the HII regions G018.149-00.283 in RCW 166 by using the JCMT CO High-Resolution Survey (COHRS) of the $^{12}$CO ($J$=3--2) emission. G018.149-00.283 comprises a bright ring at 8 $μ$m and an extended HII region inside the ring. The $\sim 48$ km s$^{-1}$ cloud delineates the ring, and the $\sim 53$ km s$^{-1}$ cloud is located within the ring, indicating a complementary distribution between the two molecular components. We propose a hypothesis that high-mass stars within G018.149-00.283 were formed by triggering in cloud-cloud collision at a projected velocity separation of $\sim 5$ km s$^{-1}$. We argue that G018.149-00.283 is in an early evolutionary stage, $\sim 0.1$ Myr after the collision according to the scheme by [hab92] which will be followed by a bubble formation stage like RCW 120. We also suggested that nearby HII regions N21 and N22 are candidates for bubbles possibly formed by cloud-cloud collision. [ino13] showed that the interface gas becomes highly turbulent and realizes a high-mass accretion rate of $10^{-3}$ -- $10^{-4}$ $M_{\odot}$ $/$yr by magnetohydrodynamical numerical simulations, which offers an explanation of the O-star formation. A fairly high frequency of cloud-cloud collision in RCW 166 is probably due to the high cloud density in this part of the Scutum arm.

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The formation of a Spitzer bubble RCW79 triggered by cloud-cloud collision

Understanding the mechanism of O star formation is one of the most important issues in current astrophysics. It is also an issue of keen interest how O stars affect their surroundings and trigger secondary star formation. An H\,\emissiontype{II} region RCW79 is one of the typical Spitzer bubbles alongside of RCW120. New observations of CO $J=$ 1--0 emission with Mopra and NANTEN2 revealed that molecular clouds are associated with RCW79 in four velocity components over a velocity range of 20 km s$^{-1}$. We hypothesize that two of the clouds collided with each other and the collision triggered the formation of 12 O stars inside of the bubble and the formation of 54 low mass young stellar objects along the bubble wall. The collision is supported by observational signatures of bridges connecting different velocity components in the colliding clouds. The whole collision process happened in a timescale of $\sim$1 Myr. RCW79 has a larger size by a factor of 30 in the projected area than RCW120 with a single O star, and the large size favored formation of the 12 O stars due to the larger accumulated gas in the collisional shock compression.

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RCW 36 in the Vela Molecular Ridge: Evidence for a high-mass star cluster formation triggered by Cloud-Cloud Collision

A collision between two molecular clouds is one possible candidate for high-mass star formation. The HII region RCW 36, located in the Vela molecular ridge, contains a young star cluster with two O-type stars. We present new CO observations of RCW 36 with NANTEN2, Mopra, and ASTE using $^{12}$CO($J$ = 1-0, 2-1, 3-2) and $^{13}$CO($J$ = 2-1) line emissions. We have discovered two molecular clouds lying at the velocities $V_\mathrm{LSR} \sim$5.5 and 9 km s$^{-1}$. Both clouds are likely to be physically associated with the star cluster, as verified by the good spatial correspondence among the two clouds, infrared filaments, and the star cluster. We also found a high intensity ratio of $\sim$0.6-1.2 for CO $J$ = 3-2 / 1-0 toward both clouds, indicating that the gas temperature has been increased due to heating by the O-type stars. We propose that the O-type stars in RCW 36 were formed by a collision between the two clouds, with a relative velocity separation of 5 km s$^{-1}$. The complementary spatial distributions and the velocity separation of the two clouds are in good agreement with observational signatures expected for O-type star formation triggered by a cloud-cloud collision. We also found a displacement between the complementary spatial distributions of the two clouds, which we estimate to be 0.3 pc assuming the collision angle to be 45$^{\circ}$ relative to the line-of-sight. We estimate the collision timescale to be $\sim$10$^5$ yr. It is probable that the cluster age by Ellerbroek et al. (2013b) is dominated by the low-mass members which were not formed under the triggering by cloud-cloud collision, and that the O-type stars in the center of the cluster are explained by the collisional triggering independently from the low-mass star formation.

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Molecular clouds in the NGC 6334 and NGC 6357 region; Evidence for a 100 pc-scale cloud-cloud collision triggering the Galactic mini-starbursts

We carried out new CO ($J=$1-0, 2-1 and 3-2) observations with NANTEN2 and ASTE in the region of the twin Galactic mini-starbursts NGC 6334 and NGC 6357. We detected two velocity molecular components of 12 km s$^{-1}$ velocity separation, which is continuous over 3 degrees along the plane. In NGC 6334 the two components show similar two-peaked intensity distributions toward the young HII regions and are linked by a bridge feature. In NGC 6357 we found spatially complementary distribution between the two velocity components as well as a bridge feature in velocity. Based on these results we hypothesize that the two clouds in the two regions collided with each other in the past few Myr and triggered formation of the starbursts over $\sim$ 100 pc. We suggest that the formation of the starbursts happened toward the collisional region of $\sim$ 10-pc extents with initial high molecular column densities. For NGC 6334 we present a scenario which includes spatial variation of the colliding epoch due to non-uniform cloud separation. The scenario possibly explains the apparent age difference among the young O stars in NGC 6334 raging from $10^4$ yrs to $10^6$ yrs; the latest collision happened within $10^5$ yrs toward the youngest stars in NGC 6334 I(N) and I which exhibit molecular outflows without HII regions. For NGC 6357 the O stars were formed a few Myrs ago, and the cloud dispersal by the O stars is significant. We conclude that cloud-cloud collision offers a possible explanation of the min-starburst over a 100-pc scale.

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Formation of the young compact cluster GM 24 triggered by a cloud-cloud collision

High-mass star formation is an important step which controls galactic evolution. GM 24 is a heavily obscured star cluster including a single O9 star with more than $\sim$100 lower mass stars within a 0.3 pc radius toward $(l,b)\sim$ (350.$^{\circ}$5, 0.$^{\circ}$96), close to the Galactic min-starburst NGC 6334. We found two velocity components associated with the cluster by new observations of $^{12}$CO $J=$ 2-1 emission, whereas the cloud was previously considered to be single. We found the distribution of the two components of $5$ km s$^{-1}$ separation shows complementary distribution which fits well with each other, if a relative displacement of 3 pc is applied along the Galactic plane. A position-velocity diagram of the GM 24 cloud is explained by a model based on the numerical simulations of two colliding clouds, where an intermediate velocity component created by collision is taken into account. We estimate the collision time scale to be $\sim$Myr in projection of a relative motion titled to the line of sight by 45 degrees. The results lend further support for cloud-cloud collision as a major mechanism of high-mass star formation in the Carina-Sagittarius Arm.

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High-mass star formation possibly triggered by cloud-cloud collision in the HII region RCW 34

We report a possibility that the high-mass star located in the HII region RCW 34 was formed by a triggering induced by a collision of molecular clouds. Molecular gas distributions of the $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO $J=$2-1, and $^{12}$CO $J=$3-2 lines toward RCW 34 were measured by using the NANTEN2 and ASTE telescopes. We found two clouds with the velocity ranges of 0-10 km s$^{-1}$ and 10-14 km s$^{-1}$. Whereas the former cloud as massive as ~2.7 x 10$^{4}$ Msun has a morphology similar to the ring-like structure observed in the infrared wavelengths, the latter cloud with the mass of ~10$^{3}$ Msun, which has not been recognized by previous observations, distributes just likely to cover the bubble enclosed by the other cloud. The high-mass star with the spectral types of O8.5V is located near the boundary of the two clouds. The line intensity ratio of $^{12}$CO $J=$3-2 / $J=$2-1 yields high values (~1.5) in the neighborhood of the high-mass star, suggesting that these clouds are associated with the massive star. We also confirmed that the obtained position-velocity diagram shows a similar distribution with that derived by a numerical simulation of the supersonic collision of two clouds. Using the relative velocity between the two clouds (~5 km s$^{-1}$), the collisional time scale is estimated to be $\sim$0.2 Myr with the assumption of the distance of 2.5 kpc. These results suggest that the high-mass star in RCW 34 was formed rapidly within a time scale of ~0.2 Myr via a triggering of cloud-cloud collision.

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FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) : Molecular clouds toward W33 ; possible evidence for a cloud-cloud collision triggering O star formation

We observed molecular clouds in the W33 high-mass star-forming region associated with compact and extended HII regions using the NANTEN2 telescope as well as the Nobeyama 45-m telescope in the $J=$1-0 transitions of $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, and C$^{18}$O as a part of the FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) legacy survey. We detected three velocity components at 35 km s$^{-1}$, 45 km s$^{-1}$, and 58 km s$^{-1}$. The 35 km s$^{-1}$ and 58 km s$^{-1}$ clouds are likely to be physically associated with W33 because of the enhanced $^{12}$CO $J=$ 3-2 to $J=$1-0 intensity ratio as $R_{\rm 3-2/1-0} > 1.0$ due to the ultraviolet irradiation by OB stars, and morphological correspondence between the distributions of molecular gas and the infrared and radio continuum emissions excited by high-mass stars. The two clouds show complementary distributions around W33. The velocity separation is too large to be gravitationally bound, and yet not explained by expanding motion by stellar feedback. Therefore, we discuss that a cloud-cloud collision scenario likely explains the high-mass star formation in W33.

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FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) I: Project Overview and Initial Results

The FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) project is one of the legacy projects using the new multi-beam FOREST receiver installed on the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. This project aims to investigate the distribution, kinematics, and physical properties of both diffuse and dense molecular gas in the Galaxy at once by observing 12CO, 13CO, and C18O J=1-0 lines simultaneously. The mapping regions are a part of the 1st quadrant (10d < l < 50d, |b| < 1d) and the 3rd quadrant (198d < l <236d, |b| < 1d) of the Galaxy, where spiral arms, bar structure, and the molecular gas ring are included. This survey achieves the highest angular resolution to date (~20") for the Galactic plane survey in the CO J=1-0 lines, which makes it possible to find dense clumps located farther away than the previous surveys. FUGIN will provide us with an invaluable dataset for investigating the physics of the galactic interstellar medium (ISM), particularly the evolution of interstellar gas covering galactic scale structures to the internal structures of giant molecular clouds, such as small filament/clump/core. We present an overview of the FUGIN project, observation plan, and initial results, which reveal wide-field and detailed structures of molecular clouds, such as entangled filaments that have not been obvious in previous surveys, and large-scale kinematics of molecular gas such as spiral arms.

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FOREST Unbiased Galactic plane Imaging survey with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope (FUGIN) 2: Possible evidence for formation of NGC~6618 cluster in M17 by cloud-cloud collision

We present $^{12}$CO $J=$1--0, $^{13}$CO $J=$1--0 and C$^{18}$O $J=$1--0 images of the M17 giant molecular clouds obtained as part of FUGIN (FOREST Ultra-wide Galactic Plane Survey InNobeyama) project. The observations cover the entire area of M17 SW and M17 N clouds at the highest angular resolution ($\sim$19$"$) to date which corresponds to $\sim$ 0.15 pc at the distance of 2.0 kpc. We find that the region consists of four different velocity components: very low velocity (VLV) clump, low velocity component (LVC), main velocity component (MVC), and high velocity component (HVC). The LVC and the HVC have cavities. UV photons radiated from NGC 6618 cluster penetrate into the N cloud up to $\sim$ 5 pc through the cavities and interact with molecular gas. This interaction is correlated with the distribution of YSOs in the N cloud. The LVC and the HVC are distributed complementary after that the HVC is displaced by 0.8 pc toward the east-southeast direction, suggesting that collision of the LVC and the HVC create the cavities in both clouds. The collision velocity and timescale are estimated to be 9.9 km s$^{-1}$ and $1.1 \times 10^{5}$ yr, respectively. The high collision velocity can provide the mass accretion rate up to 10$^{-3}$ $M_{\solar}$ yr$^{-1}$, and the high column density ($4 \times 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$) might result in massive cluster formation. The scenario of cloud-cloud collision likely well explains the stellar population and its formation history of NGC 6618 cluster proposed by Hoffmeister et al. (2008).

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A new view of the giant molecular cloud M16 (Eagle Nebula) in 12CO J=1-0 and 2-1 transitions with NANTEN2

M16, the Eagle Nebula, is an outstanding HII region where extensive high-mass star formation is taking place in the Sagittarius Arm, and hosts the remarkable "pillars" observed with HST. We made new CO observations of the region in the 12CO J=1--0 and J=2--1 transitions with NANTEN2. These observations revealed for the first time that a giant molecular cloud of $\sim 1.3 \times 10^5$ \Msun \ is associated with M16, which is elongated vertically to the Galactic plane over 35 pc at a distance of 1.8 kpc. We found a cavity of the molecular gas of $\sim 10$ pc diameter toward the heart of M16 at \lbeq (16.95\degree, 0.85\degree), where more than 10 O-type stars and $\sim 400$ stars are associated, in addition to a close-by molecular cavity toward a Spitzer bubble N19 at \lbeq (17.06\degree, 1.0\degree). We found three velocity components which show spatially complementary distribution in the entire M16 giant molecular cloud (GMC) including NGC6611 and N19, suggesting collisional interaction between them. Based on the above results we frame a hypothesis that collision between the red-shifted and blue-shifted components at a relative of $\sim 10$ \kms \ triggered formation of the O-type stars in the M16 GMC in the last 1-2 Myr. The collision is two fold in the sense that one of the collisional interactions is major toward the M16 cluster and the other toward N19 with a RCW120 type, the former triggered most of the O star formation with almost full ionization of the parent gas, and the latter an O star formation in N19.

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High-mass star formation in Orion triggered by cloud-cloud collision II, Two merging molecular clouds in NGC2024

We analyzed the NANTEN2 13CO (J=2-1 and 1-0) datasets in NGC 2024. We found that the cloud consists of two velocity components, whereas the cloud shows mostly single-peaked CO profiles. The two components are physically connected to the HII region as evidenced by their close correlation with the dark lanes and the emission nebulosity. The two components show complementary distribution with a displacement of 0.4 pc. Such complementary distribution is typical to colliding clouds discovered in regions of high-mass star formation. We hypothesize that cloud-cloud collision between the two components triggered the formation of the late O stars and early B stars localized within 0.3 pc of the cloud peak. The collision timescale is estimated to be ~ 10^5 yrs from a ratio of the displacement and the relative velocity 3-4 km s-1 corrected for probable projection. The high column density of the colliding cloud 1023 cm-2 is similar to those in the other massive star clusters in RCW 38, Westerlund 2, NGC 3603, and M42, which are likely formed under trigger by cloud-cloud collision. The present results provide an additional piece of evidence favorable to high-mass star formation by a major cloud-cloud collision in Orion.

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Discovery of H2O Megamasers in Obscured Active Galactic Nuclei

Recently a new method to discover obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by utilizing X-ray and Infrared data has been developed. We carried out a survey of H2O maser emission toward ten obscured AGNs with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. We newly detected the maser emission with the signal-noise-ratio (SNR) of above 4 from two AGNs, NGC 1402 and NGC 7738. We also found a tentative detection with its SNR > 3 in NGC 5037. The detection rate of 20% is higher than those of previous surveys (usually several percents).

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Revealing the physical properties of molecular gas in Orion with a large scale survey in J=2-1 lines of 12CO, 13CO and C18O

We present fully sampled ~3' resolution images of the 12CO(J=2-1), 13CO(J=2-1), and C18O(J=2-1) emission taken with the newly developed 1.85-m mm-submm telescope toward the entire area of the Orion A and B giant molecular clouds. The data were compared with the J=1-0 of the 12CO, 13CO, and C18O data taken with the Nagoya 4-m telescope and the NANTEN telescope at the same angular resolution to derive the spatial distributions of the physical properties of the molecular gas. We explore the large velocity gradient formalism to determine the gas density and temperature by using the line combinations of 12CO(J=2-1), 13CO(J=2-1), and 13CO(J=1-0) assuming uniform velocity gradient and abundance ratio of CO. The derived gas density is in the range of 500 to 5000 cm-3, and the derived gas temperature is mostly in the range of 20 to 50 K along the cloud ridge with a temperature gradient depending on the distance from the star forming region. We found the high-temperature region at the cloud edge facing to the HII region, indicating that the molecular gas is interacting with the stellar wind and radiation from the massive stars. In addition, we compared the derived gas properties with the Young Stellar Objects distribution obtained with the Spitzer telescope to investigate the relationship between the gas properties and the star formation activity therein. We found that the gas density and star formation efficiency are well positively correlated, indicating that stars form effectively in the dense gas region.

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A New 100-GHz Band Two-Beam Sideband-Separating SIS Receiver for Z-Machine on the NRO 45-m Radio Telescope

We have developed a two-beam waveguide-type dual-polarization sideband-separating SIS receiver system in the 100-GHz band for {\it z}-machine on the 45-m radio telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. The receiver is intended for astronomical use in searching for highly redshifted spectral lines from galaxies of unknown redshift. This receiver has two beams, which have 45$^{\prime\prime}$ of beam separation and allow for observation with the switch in the on-on position. The receiver of each beam is composed of an ortho-mode transducer and two sideband-separating SIS mixers, which are both based on a waveguide technique, and the receiver has four intermediate frequency bands of 4.0--8.0 GHz. Over the radio frequency range of 80--116 GHz, the single-sideband receiver noise temperature is lower than about 50 K, and the image rejection ratios are greater than 10 dB in most of the same frequency range. The new receiver system has been installed in the telescope, and we successfully observed a $^{12}$CO ({\it J}=3--2) emission line toward a cloverleaf quasar at {\it z} = 2.56, which validates the performance of the receiver system. The SSB noise temperature of the system, including the atmosphere, is typically 150--300 K at a radio frequency of 97 GHz. We have begun blind search of high-{\it J} CO toward high-{\it z} submillimeter galaxies.

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